


A little bit of grace, (for me and for you)

by Wingittofreedom



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: (No Underage), Academy Era, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bilingual James T. Kirk, Friendship, Humor, M/M, Mexican James T. Kirk, POC!James T. Kirk, PTSD, Slow Burn, canon typical age difference, idiots to lovers, spock the perpetual virgin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2019-11-13 08:04:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 59,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18027911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wingittofreedom/pseuds/Wingittofreedom
Summary: Professor Spock's perfectly scheduled life is forever changed when Captain Pike asks him to house a 17-year-old Jim Kirk for a summer. What follows is a tiny story of epic love; featuring brain freezes, a Vulcan riding a bicycle, a Spanish-speaking Jim, illustrations, magical kisses, and an overabundance of tortillas.





	1. La Bamba

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title "A little bit of grace" comes from the song "La Bamba" as sung by Los Lobos which was the inspiration for this story. (Also inspired by “[The Rest of their Lives](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3290873/chapters/7181864)” by zhedang, an amazing Levi/Eren story here on AO3)
> 
> EDIT 6/13/2018: If you don't want to read about a Mexican Jim Kirk, please don't read this.

_**Part One:** _

The summer sun is hot— _hot as Vulcan,_  as is often said with little regard for scientific fact. Outside, it hangs pendant in the sky, just past its meridian above the irradiated streets of San Fransisco's Bay Area.

Inside, the Vulcan Spock is doing as he has done everyday for the past 3.24 solar years since he arrived on Earth.

The lab (finally his) is lightless and filled with the steady hums and clicks of working instruments. Spock adjusts his goggles from where they have slipped down the bridge of his nose, ensuring that their protective lenses cover his field of vision completely. 

Technically, Spock does not need goggles. Although he is working with a class IV infrared laser whose beam speed is easily three times swifter than a human blink response—thus certain to scar the retinas of any human caught it its light path—Spock’s nictitating eyelid is faster still. Despite his immunity however, Spock has chosen, in this instance as in all others, to abide by the safety protocols that apply to all Starfleet labs.

Absorbed in his work as he is, his auditory reaction speed is slowed by 0.864 seconds when he hears his comm beep. Pausing his adjustment of the lasers optical path, Spock moves swiftly towards the curtained off area where he left his comm, aided by his scotopic vision and the path of phosphorescent dots generously applied by his human lab assistants.

Once behind the curtain, Spock removes his goggles, blinks to allow his eyes to adjust to their new spectral range, and notes that the call is from Captain Pike.

“Lieutenant Spock speaking,” he says into the device.

“Hi Spock, it’s Christopher,” answers Captain Pike's voice over the comm, “How’s it going?”

Pike's question jolts Spock. 

Even after over three years on Earth, it takes him a moment—exactly 1.24 seconds by his count—to cognize the illogical address and respond in an appropriate manner. 

His 1.24 second pause however, is not short enough to stop the memory of the first time he was addressed this way from rising up in his mind like a character in a pantomime. 

It had been on his second day at the Academy, in an advanced statistical mechanics class, when the human boy seated next to him had asked him "How's it going?" 

Very seriously he had done what any Vulcan would have and had asked what “it” referred to. The boy and those seated near him had broken into boisterous laughter and he’d heard one of them say “Fresh off the boat.”

It was the first time he had heard so much, and such loud laughter responses. His ears had started ringing strangely and he had focused inward, attempting to repress his intense vasodilation response.

Later that evening, he had looked up the phrase on his PADD. After reading several scientific articles and an opinion editorial entitled “The Importance of Small Talk” he discovered that the question "How is it going?" was a human social tactic used to establish in-groups and out-groups based on the interlocutors response—and of initiating bonds of social cohesion within the former. And further that he had inadvertently failed this test, establishing himself as part of an "out-group."

“I am adequate,” is his ostensibly simple response. “What is the purpose of your call?”

“Where are you?” Pike asks, not answering his question. 

“Science Building A, lab 309.”

“Good, good,” says Pike somewhat distractedly. “Are you busy?” 

“I had planned to work until 1930 hours,” he says, and would have left it there had anyone had he been speaking to anyone else. “However it is not necessary that I do so. Is it a matter of urgency?”

“Not urgent, but important Spock. Would it interrupt your research too terribly if you stepped over to my office sometime between now and 1700?” 

According to the workings of Spock’s suprachiasmic nucleus (what humans fancifully call an internal clock) it is 1504 hours. Although reluctant to leave his work, Spock does a quick calculation in his head.

“Based on my current rate of progress I will reach a point at which data collection will be entirely autonomous between 1630 and 1730 hours at which time I will need to manually adjust certain parts of my experiment. Will this be sufficient?”

“That’ll be great Spock. I appreciate it,” Pike says in a tone that, despite his superior auditory perception, Spock fails to understand the nuances of. “I’ll see you then.”

“Yes, sir. Spock out.” Spock sets down his communicator and replaces his goggles, mind already turning over what Pike might have to say. 

***

When he emerges from Science Building A, Spock is a black clad figure amidst the vibrating colors of San Fransisco’s June. As he walks the short distance to Pike’s office in the administrative section of the campus, he savors the unusually high temperature reminiscent of his home planet. 

Although the humans of the 21st and 22nd centuries had managed to stave off the worst effects of climate change, Earth's temperatures had risen appreciably in certain parts of the world, including the coastal regions of California. In his studies of Earth’s culture Spock had read Svante Arrhenius’ fascinating 1896 paper “ _On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground,”_ the first work of science ever to provide evidence for Terran climate change. 

While most humans in the 21st and 22nd centuries had viewed Arrhenius’ belief that global warming would actually be _good_ for the planet (Arrhenius had lived in one of the colder regions of Earth) as foolish and anachronistic, Spock had always privately agreed with the Swedish scientist and thought that Earth would be much more habitable as an arid desert. 

When Spock enters Pike’s office at precisely 1635 hours, Pike looks up from his computer and smiles. 

“Spock, thank you for coming. Please take a seat,” Pike says, gesturing towards the chair across from his desk. 

As he sits, Spock observes Pike’s face for clues as to what is to come. He notes a slight periorbital distention and tightness in Pikes orofacial musculature, which taken together signify an 94.3% chance that the Captain is fatigued. However, as is so often the case, Spock is unable to determine what emotion lies hidden within the lines and contours of human expression—his scientists gaze so adept at determining measurements and ratios, woefully blind to the task. 

“So, how have you been? How’s your research going?” Pike asks. “I haven’t seen you since the end of the semester.”

“I have been well. My research has been progressing adequately,” Spock responds, having been acquainted with Pike long enough to know that he won't be offended by Spock's not returning the query.

“Good, I’m glad to hear it,” Pike says, before pausing momentarily. “What is it you’re working on again? Something to do with… energy right? Did you get that grant you were applying for?” 

Although Spock would rather get to the point and Pike’s grasp of science in general, let alone Spock’s specialized research into photovoltaic stellar hull panels is clearly limited, Pike is one of the very few people outside Spock’s department who asks about his research (the only other person who asks is his mother), so he responds with an answer he believes Pike will understand.

“Yes Captain. My project has advanced beyond its preliminary stages and I am now collaborating with several research teams on Earth as well as one on Andoria. I project that prototype stellar energy panels will be made available for starships in a matter of years, thus significantly reducing the strain on both impulse and warp engines.”

Pike smiles, which Spock believes means that he is pleased. “That’s great news. I’m glad you’re on the case, because if it was left up to guys like me, we’d probably still be killing our food with spears,” Pike says with another grin.

Humor, Spock thinks this time. Spock has noticed a strong correlation between incongruous imagery and the human sense of humor.

“I can make no comment on the matter,” Spock responds neutrally. Pike laughs and Spock lifts an eyebrow. 

“On what matter did you wish to speak with me?” Spock asks, prompted by the curiosity that has been building since Pike's call.

Pike’s smile fades, making him look serious. “Well, I’d like to ask a favor, Spock.” Spock tilts his head slightly to the side. “No, not something for the Academy. A personal matter,” Pike says, somehow picking up on Spock’s silent question.

“What is it you wish me to do?”

“Well,” Pike says pursing his lips, “I need a babysitter.” Spock feels his brows furrow in confusion as Pike’s word illicits an odd mental picture. “No,” Pike chuckles, his eyes widening, “not a babysitter—that’s an idiom, ah, I mean I need someone to watch an underage Terran while I’m not around.”

“I see,” says Spock, not seeing. “And you believe I would be suited to this task?” Spock asks doubtfully, calculating all the changes to his schedule that such a task would entail, and daunted by his conclusions. Spock, as a rule, does not relate well with human children nor does he wish to waste time or space on one.

“I’ll get there Spock. It’s sort of a delicate matter, you see. The kid, well he’s not related to me, but he’s staying with me for the summer. His grandmother has just been placed in a nursing home and no one’s sure who’s going to take care of him. I invited him to stay with me for the summer while it gets sorted out.” 

Spock is somewhat surprised.

Captain Pike is a very busy man. In addition to being scheduled to ship out on the _USS Enterprise_  at the end of September, Pike’s administrative duties for Starfleet run deeper than those of most captains. Spock has noticed this discrepancy and suspects that these duties go a long way towards explaining Pike’s seemingly disproportionate influence with the admiralty. 

Combined, these circumstances make it extremely probable that Captain Pike would only have made such an invitation to a lone Terran child if there were a very compelling reason to.

“If he is not your offspring, then how are you connected to this child?” Spock asks, attempting to suss out Pike's motives.

“He’s the son of George Kirk,” Pike pauses, perhaps to give time Spock to recall the name from the tragedies of Starfleet's history. Spock, who had been 4.21 years old when the  _Kelvin_ was destroyed in a warp drive malfunction, does not require this time and nods to signal that Pike should go on.

“Well anyway, I knew George and his wife Winona from before the _Kelvin_ accident and I’ve met Jim—that’s their son’s name—a few years ago.” Pike pauses again, his brow laden with some unknown tension. “Anyway, he’s an extremely bright kid, but he hasn't had a lot of... _direction_ ,” Pike says placing a peculiar emphasis on the word, “And, as you know, the _Enterprise_ ships out at the end of September and I’ll be gone for a few days here and there making preparations in between now and then.” 

Spock nods again. While he senses that he’s been given clues, he is still frustratingly unsure of Pike’s intentions. 

“And you wish for me to act in a supervisory role during your absences?”

“Yes, Spock,” Pike says, a decrease in tension in the lines of his shoulders and forehead signaling that he is relieved, “that’s exactly it. I know childcare isn’t exactly your area of expertise, but I think you’re a good fit for this.” Spock’s face must twitch because Pike again responds to what Spock hasn’t said.

“No, I mean it Spock. Jim is…well to put it mildly he has authority issues,” Pike grimaces before continuing, “but you’re the smartest person either of us knows and I think it will be good for him to look up to someone.” At this, understanding at last clicks in Spock’s brain.

“And you would prefer that someone to be in Starfleet I presume?”

“You caught me Spock," Pike says, putting up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "But this isn’t just about recruitment,” Pike finishes cryptically.

“If I understand correctly, you wish me to convince him to join Starfleet. What is his age?”

“He’s 17. And convince is putting it strongly. I just want you to show him around campus, maybe take him to your lab or wherever it is you brainiacs hang out,” Pike says prompting Spock to push aside the illogical embarrassment brought on by the image of himself hanging upside down from a tree limb.

Spock considers the proposition. He does not particularly want to acquiesce to Pike's 'favor,' seeing as he values his privacy and bringing a potentially disruptive human adolescent into his apartment would threaten this. 

However Pike is the closest thing Spock has to a friend and he knows, with a feeling of finality, that there is only one ethical choice.

“I will endeavor to do as you ask to the best of my ability,” Spock says and watches a smile lift Pike's face. “However, I would like to note that I do not believe I will be well suited to this task.”

Spock’s admonishment is not enough to quell Pike’s enthusiastic gratitude.

“Thank you Spock—I’m so glad. And I think you’ll find that you’re exactly the right person.”

“If that is all, I will take my leave,” Spock says, noting that the elevation angle of the sun has decreased by 8.4° during this conversation. 

“Yes that’s all. I'll comm you a list of dates. And really, thank you. I’ll owe you one for this.” Spock quells his automatic response to ask _“one what?”_ as he rises and moves towards the door.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Pike calls out when Spock is almost out the door. Spock pauses and turns slightly to face him, expectant.

“Do you speak Spanish?” Pike asks.


	2. Egghead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations at the end  
> EDIT: THANK YOU TO THE AMAZING [sciencebluefeelings](https://sciencebluefeelings.tumblr.com)” for doing a Beautiful drawing for this chapter!

Spock does _not_ speak Spanish.

His mother had been raised in Quebec, Canada speaking both French and Terran Standard. Later, as an undergrad and graduate student, she had learned several other languages—including all three currently used dialects of Golic—during her work on the Universal Translator.

Teaching Spock both of her native languages, her funny sounding, levanto French and the staccato iambic rhythms of Standard, had been one of the few ways she could impart him with some of his human heritage in a way that was acceptably Vulcan.

So, Spock speaks Québécois (which had drawn still more _schadenfreude_ the time he had attended an astrochemistry conference in Lyon, France). And he speaks unaccented Standard—without the sibilant aspiration that most Vulcans spoke it with, a little Yiddish and Hebrew, and all three dialects of Golic as well as a few other Alpha-quadrant languages.

But he does not speak Spanish. 

Apparently James Kirk does. 

Pike had sent the promised list of dates during which Spock will be expected to supervise the human child the day after their meeting, and it immediately became clear that Spock had been “had,” if he is using the idiom correctly.

“A few days here and there” turns out to be several weeks interspersed throughout the summer.

It also appears that Pike has not left Spock any time to rescind his offer as the first set of dates begin this weekend. 

Today is Thursday. 

It was a shrewd tactic, Spock admits to himself, relying on Spock’s sense of duty and then giving him no time to think better of it.

Despite having no time to think better of it, Spock is, well, certainly not _panicking_ in the human sense—but _were_  Vulcans prone to ascribing emotional nomenclature to mental states, Spock’s current thought patterns might probably be described as a form of irrational anxiety.

 _Panic, Spock. Is this an emotional response?_ asks a voice that comes from the part of his mind where the VSA panel sits.

Distressingly, his current physiological state is reminiscent of the moments before being summoned to the review of his application before that board. He can feel an itch run along the sites of his hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, his body responding to the increased levels of cortisol in his bloodstream. 

This time as then, Spock is irritated by the illogic of his physiology. 

It is evening and Spock is in his apartment. The sky outside is an overripe pink color that isn’t quite red enough to be _vai sbah_ , the holy red of Vulcan’s daytime sky. 

Spock has cleaned his apartment twice. Over the years he has found that cleaning as well as math, engage his parasympathetic nervous system and bring his body back into homeostasis when it is experiencing stress. 

He had discovered both of these strategies as a child on Vulcan. At seven he had ascertained that the Vulcan Learning Institute’s mathematics software could generate an infinite number of problems for him to solve on his PADD and that by solving these problems he could focus on them to the exclusion of all else. 

Cleaning had originally been a punishment. His mother had called it “community service,” which she said was the most useful form of justice. Spock had quickly agreed that such chastisement was logical when he found that sweeping, mopping and scrubbing were almost like meditation; a form of restoring order to disorder.

“There is no such thing as something inherently bad Spock,” his mother had said. “Only things that aren't where they're supposed to be. Dirt is only dirt when it's in-doors. Outside, it is the soil that provides the nutrients for the tomatoes you like so much,” she had said, poking a five year old Spock in the stomach. “What we call _yetzer hara_ , the desire to do evil, is only _yetzer tov_ , the desire for goodness showing up in the wrong way.”

Spock had sometimes thought growing up, that on Vulcan he was like dirt inside a house.

“Dirt is always longing to be soil again,” his mother had said.

 _Tonight, it must be longing more than usual_ Spock thinks as he looks around his gleaming apartment and contemplates cleaning it for a third time.  

He has just set scrub brush to lintel when his comm pings. It is his mother.

“Hello Spock! It’s so good to see you!” she says, smiling.

“Hello Mother,” Spock responds.

“How are you Spock? You look a little pale,” her words the verbal equivalent of trying to straighten his collar.

“I assure you, I am adequate,” he says because he wouldn’t know what else to say if not that. “Any alteration in skin pigmentation is likely due to working in a darkened laboratory.” If past behavior is anything to go by, she likely wants to press the issue, but instead she takes his cue to change the subject. 

“How _is_ your research going? Did you hear back from the team in South Africa? What was that woman’s name again you were going to work with? The head scientist there?” 

“My research is progressing more rapidly than I initially anticipated. I have been in contact with Dr. Botha and she has informed me that the ASSA has begun work on streamlining a proto-manufacturing process based on my current apparatus.”

“Dr. Botha, that’s right. You had a lot to say about her work on renewable space-worthy fuels last time we spoke,” his mother says, with a significant smile. “Pretty exciting stuff. I’m glad to hear that your work is going well. Just think, maybe all Federation ships will use your panels someday. Make sure you get your name on them before that happens.”

“Yes, Professor Botha’s work in that area is highly nuanced,” Spock responds, not understanding his mothers smile. “As to attempting to put my name on stellar hull plates, the desire to to assign one's names to ones creations or discoveries is a purely human impulse. Further it is one that has contributed a great deal to a lack of clarity within human scientific nomenclature," Spock says disapprovingly. "Surely as a linguist and translator you can appreciate the difficulty such an illogical naming practice poses.”

Amanda laughs at this. “As someone concerned with the pragmatics of translation yes, sometimes that does irritate me," she says. "But that applies to the idiosyncrasies of all languages—including Golic,” here Amanda pauses.

“Actually sometimes especially Golic. I could give twelve lectures and a _derashah_ about the illogic of the Vulcan language. I mean for one thing, it’s almost impossible for an outsider to learn as its precise agglutination system is so finicky. Like how the word for those little lizard things—you know, the _pik’kareeneiyokulsu_ that show up in my garden to bask—is essentially ‘small-legged-vertebrate-reptillian-seed-eater.’ All that talmudic precision just to talk about a garden pest, and _then,"_ here Amanda begins to look frazzled.

“When you get to certain aspects of Vulcan biology all of a sudden,” she says with a small hand gesture, “it’s all hush hush and _da’ni’i’khirch_ and ‘that-which-burns-until-it-is-extinguished’ and ‘blood fever’ which, if _that_ isn’t idiomatic, then I don’t know what is,” here Amanda pauses again and looks at Spock as though only now noticing his discomfort.

“Sorry honey, I got carried away. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, matters of biology are discussed more freely on Earth.”

“Much more freely,” Spock responds stiffly.

“Yes, and about that—”

“Mother,” Spock says even more stiffly.

“Alright, alright, I won’t pry. But you know you can tell me anything right? Earth is so different from Vulcan and I know it can’t be easy.” Spock, for once, thinks that he is picking up on the subtext of his mother’s comment. He knows that she worries he won’t fit in, won’t make friends, that he isn’t happy. In an effort to distract or perhaps allay her fears, Spock brings up the subject he had debated calling her about after his initial discussion with Pike.

“I do have news. Captain Pike has asked me to act in a supervisory role for several weeks this summer to a Terran male adolescent. I did not desire to undertake this task as I am not suited to it, however I saw no way of refusing.”

“You’re going to babysit?” Amanda asks, her eyes lighting up. “Spock that’s wonderful. When do you start? Who is the boy?”

“Pike will be bringing him on Saturday. The boy’s name is James Kirk. He is not a relative of Captain Pike, however his former caretaker has been placed in a home for the elderly. I believe staying with Captain Pike is a temporary arrangement that will be terminated upon a permanent caretaker being found for the boy.”

“Hmm, do you know anything else about him?” 

“Captain Pike has described him as intelligent but distrustful of authority. While I do not understand the Captain’s exact reasoning for assigning me this task, I believe that he intends for me to convince James Kirk to join Starfleet through…indirect means. Any advice you have on this matter would be most appreciated.”

“It sounds like Christopher thinks the two of you have something in common,” Amanda says softly to herself before to addressing her sons question. “Spock I think the best advice I can give you is to try to be understanding. If his—you said caretaker?”

“His grandmother.”

“Yes, if his grandmother was just put in a nursing home he’s probably feeling lost and upset so he might need a friend just now. If you can talk to him or accommodate him somehow it will probably go a long way.”

“Thank you for your advice Mother. I will endeavor to do so,” Spock says, aware that 'being understanding' is not his strong suit.

“I’m proud of you,” she says, verbally straightening his collar again. “Call me if you have any more questions. I should probably say goodbye now though. It’s getting pretty late here,” his mother says, which Spock knows is code for his father just having gotten home. 

“Goodbye Mother.”

“Goodbye Spock, I love you,” she says before her screen blinks into darkness. Spock looks out the square window positioned in the wall where his living room flows into his kitchen. The sky at the horizon has turned as red as Vulcan’s. 

***

It is the early morning of Saturday the 4th day of the Terran month of June, Stardate 2251.154. It is 5:05AM and the sky outside is still dark with night. Spock is meditating as he has done every morning for the past 3.241 solar years since arriving on Earth. At 0600, Spock emerges from his meditative state to the whooshing sounds of early morning air traffic and the lightening darkness of dawn. 

Spock rises from his seated position, stoops to extinguish his incense and moves to the cleared space in his living room and slides easily into the first position of the _Suus Manha_. 

With each shift into the next pose, the sun rises higher, bathing the city streets and Spock’s apartment with _ha’ge-zhel_ , with sunlight, turning each pose into a silhouette against its brightness. When he finishes the steps in the position of _Kir-Alep_ , the god of peace to whom the _Suus Manha_ is dedicated, the sun is at an elevation angle of 35.6° and it is 0700.

Spock showers efficiently, and changes into his day clothes. At 0720 he goes to his kitchen and makes tea and assembles _asal-yem_ , the first meal. At 0730 he is seated at his table drinking tea and eating edamame, bitter Vidiian tree nuts and dried blueberries. 

Pike will be arriving with Jim at 1400 hours today. Despite this, Spock feels calm in the well-trodden path of his routine. After eating, he washes his cup and plate in the sonic faucet and puts them back in their respective places. He assembles his reading materials and sits on the couch in his living room, eyes flicking quickly through the news feeds from the Alpha-quadrant and onto the latest issue of the _Interplanetary Journal of Biology_. 

So absorbed is he in an article detailing the properties of a newly discovered amphibious Cardassian extremophile, he is startled when the intercom by his door buzzes and Pike’s voice issues through it. 

“We’re here Spock, can you let us in?” Realizing that it is indeed 2:03, Spock sets his pad on the side table and moves quickly towards the door and buzzes his visitors into the building. 54.3 seconds later there is a knock on his door. He opens it and steps aside to allow Pike and the boy to enter.

Spock, as he sees Pike look around his apartment curiously, suddenly realizes he does not know the proper protocol for inviting visitors into your apartment, let alone your superior officer and his non-relation charge. Not for the first time, Spock wishes that moments such as these came with a manual. Preferably a long, exhaustive work of pure science.

“Do you require refreshment?” he asks, thinking of the customary glass of water offered to guests on Vulcan. 

“No thank you Spock,” says Pike. The boy, who has not stopped watching Spock since he opened the door, says “No thank you sir,” in a quiet voice.

Spock glances at him. At 5’3’’ he’s short for a Terran of his age, with a shaved head and light brown skin. He’s wearing a baseball hat positioned backwards on his head and an old t-shirt and shorts that reveal faint abrasions on his knees and elbows—possibly sustained from some form of hover or cycling activity. His face has a taut expression on it, eyes narrowed under slightly contracted brows. Suspicion, Spock thinks.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/46417565915/in/dateposted-public/)

“Spock, this is Jim Kirk,” Pike says gesturing to the boy next to him. “Jim, this is Professor Spock,” he says, this time gesturing to Spock. 

“It’s nice to meet your sir,” the boy, Jim Kirk says, holding up a _ta’al_. Spock holds up a _ta’al_ of his own, surprised and glad that there would be none of the usual awkwardness he undergoes when offered a human handshake.

“You are welcome to my home,” Spock says, gesturing at his apartment. “Would you like me to show you where you can put your belongings?” He watches as Jim’s gaze darts around the room and then back to Spock.

“Yes, thank you,” he says. Jim follows Spock into the room where his sleeping and meditation mats are rolled up and his fire pot sits in one corner. Spock slides open the door to his closet and gestures to the great expanse of empty space on the clothes bar.

“You may put anything you wish to here or in the bottom two drawers,” he says, gesturing to the set of drawers underneath. He had shifted his own items around the day before, ensuring that these would be empty. He reaches into the closet and pulls out his extra sleeping mat.

“You may put this wherever you like, the bathroom is through that door,” Spock says setting the mat next to the set of drawers. 

“Thank you,” Jim says, lifting his backpack off his shoulders and edging towards the closet with his back to the wall, Spock notices, without ever letting Spock out of his field of vision.

“Jesus Spock, we have got to talk about your food selection,” he hears Pike say loudly from the other room. Spock exits his sleeping quarters and sees Captain Pike in the kitchen with several cabinets and his refrigerator door open. Although Spock knows what is inside, he joins Pike looking into the refrigerator to see if perhaps its contents have changed since this morning.

Thankfully, nothing looks amiss to Spock. His tomatoes, carrot juice, seaweed, Bajoran moss, fermented plums, orange peels, kombucha scobies and Andorian fungi are all as they were this morning. He looks in confusion at Pike. Perhaps he is referring to this final item as Andorian _achii_ mushrooms are poisonous to humans. 

“Man, and I thought I was the charity case,” Jim says from several feet behind him.

“I knew you were vegetarian Spock, but don’t you think this is taking it a little too far?” Pike asks, still looking incredulously into Spock’s refrigerator as though looking will somehow change the evidence before his eyes.

“It’s because he doesn’t have a Mexican grandmother,” Jim says. “If my _abuela_ saw this she’d have her stroke all over again.”

Spock still does not understand what is wrong with the food in his refrigerator, but it is clear that it is incumbent upon him to offer a solution.

“There is a Saturday market in operation a few blocks from here. If you wish we can purchase additional food items there.” Pike smiles at him, the expression slightly marred by the two fingers Pike has pressed to his temple.

Spock takes this as reasonable proof that he has assessed the situation correctly. 

“Alright,” Pike says, “I’ll leave you two to it. Oh, and before I forget to mention it, I got Jim a job at that tech store that provides a lot of the computer aid for Starfleet, ASI, you know the one. It’s between here and campus, so Jim should be able to walk or you can give him a ride. I’ll see you next week Jim,” he says winking at Jim. “And thanks again Spock,” Pike, says with a parting wave.

Together, Spock and his new houseguest watch the door swing shut behind the departing captain.

“Alright,” Jim says after a brief moment of silence, putting his hands on his hips and looking up at Spock. Something about the contents of his refrigerator seemed to have galvanized him, because his eyes are no longer narrowed. “Let me finish putting my stuff away and then we can go fix your problem,” he says gesturing to Spock’s refrigerator with his thumb. 

Jim heads back to the bedroom. Spock opens up his refrigerator again. He still does not understand what is wrong with its contents.

*** 

The street market is a whirl of burning colors, the bodies and stalls trapping the heat close, like a dog looking for faces to lick. Jim has taken charge, leading Spock from stall to stall, talking with the vendors and asking questions about their produce.

Spock notices that Jim stays alert, surveying the crowd and keeping his back to a wall whenever possible. Jim also examines each and every item before buying it, holding it carefully, turning it over, smelling it and sometimes even bringing it up to his ear and shaking it as though this will provide some measure of gustatory value. 

“What are you doing?” Spock asks as Jim does this with two limes at once, shaking them by his ears like _kus-vakh_ , Vulcan chimes. 

“You’ve got to listen to what the fruit is telling you Professor Spock,” Jim says solemnly. “Here, you try it,” he says, putting the limes in Spock’s hands.

“I’m not going to—” Spock starts, slipping into a contraction in his confusion.

“Come on Professor, you won’t know until you’ve tried.”

Spock looks into Jim’s serious brown eyes, and remembers his mothers words _“…if you can accommodate him somehow it will probably go a long way.”_ Reluctantly, and feeling very foolish Spock keeps his face totally impassive as he holds the limes up on either side of his head and gives them a little shake.

“Well?” Jim asks, his solemn expression betrayed by a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“I do not hear anything,” Spock says.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/32398776407/in/dateposted-public/)

“Give them to me,” Jim says, taking the limes back from Spock, and holding them up to his ears with a very focused expression. His eyes widen and looks back at Spock and then back at the limes before saying something in Spanish and tilting his head to the side as though listening. His expression is a little shocked.

“These are very rude limes Professor,” he says gravely. The woman who’s limes Jim is handling has come out from around her counter and is leaning on it, watching their exchange with a smile. 

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/48768069747/in/dateposted-public/)

“What did they say?” she asks Jim with a grin.

“I shouldn’t say it out loud,” Jim says smirking back at her. 

“Just whisper it to me then,” she says adding on something in Spanish that Spock can’t understand. Despite himself, Spock is somewhat curious as to what Jim will say.

Jim, knowing that all eyes are on him, winks at Spock as though somehow he is in on the joke and puts his hands to her ear and says in a perfectly audible whisper “For one thing they called Spock here  _un huevón_ for thinking he can hear limes.”

The woman laughs and says something in Spanish gesturing at Spock. For some unknown reason her comment makes Jim flush, but he answers her, shaking his head slightly. Spock hears the word “ _huevón_ ,” used again in the exchange.

They buy the limes from the smiling woman. 

“What does ‘ _huevón_ ’ mean?” Spock asks, as they walk away from the cart, feeling nettled and suspecting that he is being made fun of.

Jim looks up at him and raises his eyebrows. “It means egghead, Spock. Which is exactly what you are,” he says as though he’s revealing a fundamental truth about the universe.

***

When they get back to Spock’s apartment several hours later Jim goes immediately to work, digging out an apron, getting out pots, soaking dried goods, putting things in Spock’s cabinets and refrigerator, taking things out of Spock’s spice drawer and chopping up vegetables. Spock watches from his living room, slightly concerned and not at all sure how to help. By the time Spock deems it safe to approach, it is almost 6:30 and there is something on the stove that Jim is alternately sniffing and stirring.

“What is it?” Spock asks, noting how the muscles in Jim’s shoulders tense when Spock gets close enough to look down at what appears to be some kind of soup.

“It’s _menudo_ , the vegetarian kind,” Jim says looking up at Spock with watchful eyes. “I hope you like spicy food.”

“Where did you learn how to prepare it?” Spock asks, fascinated despite himself. Neither his mother nor his father had been good cooks, or even cooks at all. Both of them had always been too busy, and even when they’d had the time, both of them had preferred ordering food. Spock had eaten enough of his mothers burned “Hanukkah cookies” the only year she’d tried to make them as well as seen his father give up enough times trying to make a pasta dish for his mother to understand why.

“My _abuela_ taught me,” Jim says before looking sternly up at Spock. “But not all Mexicans can cook okay? And while we’re on the subject of stereotypes, not all Mexicans are from broken homes either _and_ not all Mexicans are Catholic,” he finished vehemently, eyebrows furrowed. 

“That is statistically sound,” Spock says carefully, confused by Jim's vehemence.

Jim keeps scowling at him suspiciously for a few more moments rolling his eyes, saying something under his breath that sounds like “egghead.”

Jim hands two placemats to Spock to set on the table and then spoons soup into two bowls and puts them on the placemats. Spock pours two glasses of water and sets them next to the bowls. They both sit down and Spock watches as Jim briefly clasps his hands together and mutters something in quick Spanish.

Spock tries the soup, Jim watching out of the corner of his eye. Spock’s eyes widen slightly as he puts the spoon in his mouth. It’s very good.

“This is very good,” Spock says. Jim rolls his eyes again.

“Of course it is, I made it. Now you’re going to have to be grateful to me for the rest of your life for saving you from your own poor food choices,” Jim informs him.

“I still do not understand what is wrong with the contents of my refrigerator,” says Spock, who doesn’t. Jim looks at him for a moment before he starts a coughing sort of giggle, throwing up a hand to cover his face.

Spock is again not sure whether he is the subject of the laughter or 'in on the joke,' and this uncertainty is disconcerting.

When Jim stops laughing, he looks at Spock with eyes that are abruptly sad.

“The problem, _vato_ , is that no one’s told you before.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> abuela=grandmother  
> huevo/huevon=“huevo” means “egg” in Spanish, so “huevón” literally means “big egg” aka "egghead"  
> vato= dude]
> 
> Also, Spock's age: Just turned 21. He's about 3 years and a few months older than Jim. 
> 
> answer to an eye color question: Jim is AOS Jim, not TOS Jim. However he's a Mexican/Mexican-American person of color. While there are plenty of Mexican folks with blue eyes and blonde hair, it's not the typical phenotype so this Jim was born with brown eyes and hair.


	3. “I want to ride my bicycle! I want to ride my bike!" -Freddie Mercury, Queen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations at the end

Outside the window, San Fransisco’s long sunset has begun. After they’re done eating their soup Jim picks up Spock’s bowl and examines it carefully. Spock looks at him and raises an eyebrow.

“I’m glad you’re not a food waster,” Jim says, shrugging as he answers Spock’s unspoken question. “My _abuela_ always says that if you don’t eat all your food, you have to eat everything you wasted in hell.”

Jim takes their bowls to the sink and starts ladling the rest of the _menudo_ into a tupperware. When Spock approaches the sink to wash the dishes he notices Jim tense again, so he deliberately slows his movements, making them steady and careful as he would around a twitchy animal. 

After they are finished Jim goes into the bedroom, coming out a few minutes later wearing a pair of slacks and a button up shirt, sans baseball hat. He walks quickly and deliberately toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Spock asks, seeing as it is his responsibility to monitor his odd guest.

“Mass,” Jim says, his eyes narrowed as he places his hand on the doorknob. 

“Would you like to borrow my bicycle?” Spock asks and Jim’s eyes fly open for 1.8 tenths of a second, a micro expression Spock easily sees but does not comprehend the meaning of. Then Jim looks Spock up and down and snorts.

“You’re like, what, 6′ 2″?”

“6’ 2.17,’’ and the bicycle is adjustable,” Spock says. This gets the corner of Jim’s mouth to tug upward and he rolls his eyes. 

“Okay, lead the way Professor Spock.”

They go down to the apartment buildings basement-garage where Spock lifts his bicycle off of its hook and carries it up the stairs to the pavement outside, Jim following. The air is still murmuring with residual heat despite the light etchings of shadow that have turned the canyon street a pale purple. 

Spock and Jim make quick work of the bike. Spock gives him the code to the apartment and Jim, after flicking on the safety lights and putting on Spock’s spare helmet is racing down the street like one more shadow.

Spock walks back up to his kitchen and boils water for tea. He waits while the pot heats, bringing his hands close so that they can absorb the radiating warmth. When the water is done boiling, Spock makes a cup of tea and sits at the table to finish reading his article about Cardassian extremophiles, trying to regain the sense of calm equilibrium he had felt that morning.

The sky darkens until Spock has to turn on the lamp on the side table. At 2030 Spock shuts off his pad and goes into the bedroom. He unrolls his meditation mat and lights an incense stick. As the scent of resin fills the room, Spock closes his eyes and breathes in, picturing a strong wind blowing the events and emotions of his day into nothingness. 

Sometime later he hears a scuffing sound and opens his eyes to the darkness. As his eyes adjust he sees Jim moving quietly to the bathroom. Spock roles up his meditation mat and puts it back in its corner with the now burnt out incense. He unrolls his sleeping mat and moves to the closet to get his pajamas. He efficiently strips off his clothes and puts on his matching button up shirt and sleeping pants. They are both made from the same material, a soft light blue fabric that his mother had chosen when he had left home for Earth. 

Spock knocks on the bathroom door and hears a mumbled “Come in,” issue from inside.

Jim is in a t-shirt and shorts, brushing his teeth and standing in a deceptively casual way with his back to a wall near the door. His eyes, which never leave Spock, remind him of his mother’s _dzharel_ , the time I-Chaya had escaped and entered the equine's enclosure.

He remembers the way the  _dzharel's_  eyes had never left the giant _sehlat_ , her four hooves perfectly still on the sand and her muscles tense and ready to flee.

Briefly assessing the spatial arrangement of the room, Spock slows his movements again, retrieving his own toothbrush and carefully leaning against the opposite wall, giving Jim space to approach the sink unhindered. 

“Nice pajamas,” Jim says after he spits in the sink, his body tense in the enclosed space, but his eyes glinting with what might be humor.

In lieu of answering with a mouthful of toothpaste Spock simply raises a dignified eyebrow that makes Jim laugh as he exits the bathroom, edging out sideways.

By the time Spock is finished with his ablutions, Jim has already unrolled his sleeping mat on the side of the small room closer to the door and is sitting on it, his back to the wall, eyes watching Spock, who goes to his own sleeping mat, lying on his back looking up at the ceiling.

After several minutes he hears Jim lie down as well, but doesn't hear his breathing settle into the regular respiration pattern of a sleeping body.

Spock closes his eyes. He chooses to quiet his mind and allows his body to drift into sleep.

When he wakes it is early in the morning on Sunday, the 5th day of the Terran month of June, Stardate 2251.155. At 0505, the sky outside is still night-dark and Spock is meditating as he has done every other morning for the past 3.202 solar years since arriving on Earth. 

This time however, when he emerges from his meditative state at 0600 hours it is to the sight and sounds of a boy, finally asleep in the corner of his bedroom. Spock moves quietly as he extinguishes his incense, roles up his mat, and exits into the mostly empty space of his living room. There he slides into the first position of the _Suus Mahna_ , the stance of balance that belongs to _Akraana_ , the goddess of war who begins the dance. 

At 0639, when the sun is at an elevation angle of 27°, Spock hears a rustling from the bedroom. A few minutes later Jim emerges wearing running shoes. He silently watches Spock for 7.41 seconds before grabbing a banana from the kitchen leaving out the front door.

At 0747, when Spock is in the middle of his breakfast routine, the door opens and a sweating Jim walks in, wiping his face on his shirt sleeve. 

“The streets here are crazy Professor Spock,” Jim says as he starts untying and pulling off his shoes. “They’re too _escarpado_. I swear one of those _pinches calles_ had a gradient of 80°.”

“Yes, that would be 22nd st. It’s maximum gradient registers at 77.46°,” responds Spock from his seat at the table. 

“How do you know that?” Jim asks, looking up, startled.

“Vulcans posses more neurons in their temporal cortexes and pariental lobes, meaning that we have higher levels of spatial awareness and extereoperception compared to our human counterparts.”

“ _¿Verdad?_ ” Jim asks, his eyebrows lifting. “Does that mean you always know stuff like the ambient temperature and like, Greenwich mean time?”

“Yes,” says Spock somewhat taken aback by Jim’s enthusiasm, especially when contrasted to his tense watchfulness the night before. 

“You’re like the perfect scientist—it’s like your whole body is an instrument—I bet you never get lost,” Jim says tilting his head to the side. “How exact can you get?”

“Depending on a variety of factors, usually up to the third decimal place, and occasionally up to the 5th.”

“ _Huevo_ , that’s amazing,” Jim says.

This last comment gives Spock an illogically warm feeling in his stomach as Jim finishes taking off his shoes and socks and stands up, curiously observing Spock eat his tree nuts one by one with chopsticks.

“Do Vulcans not eat with their hands?” he asks.

It appears Jim asks many questions Spock notes.

“We do not,” Spock replies somewhat tersely as he is not used to having his mealtimes interrupted with speech.

“Why not?”

“It is thought of as vulgar,” Spock says, trying not to clench his jaw and choosing a purposefully imprecise word due to the sensitive nature of the information Jim is unknowingly asking for. 

“Is that why you,” here Jim makes a _ta’al_ , “instead of shaking hands? Are hands thought of as extra gross or something?” 

“For the opposite reasoning," Spock answers, resigned. "Hands are considered to have particular cultural importance because of the role they play in _irak-nahan_ , what humans call telepathy. In pre-Surakian times they were even thought to be the most sacred part of the body for this very reason,” Spock replies, stopping himself there. 

He _could_ describe how in these ancient times, the noble classes did nothing else with their hands but engage in _kash-novh_ , the melding of minds or of the holy sages who wandered the deserts, keeping the eternal silence and melding with animals. 

Spock doesn’t say any of this though.

He never knows how much to say with humans—never knows when they will grow bored and stop listening—and this knowledge is... _precious_ to him, and so he stays silent.

This too is illogical, he thinks as he hears the sound of the shower turning on and Jim’s voice start to sing something in quiet Spanish that sounds like _“labamba.”_

***

On Sundays Spock volunteers at a wildlife refuge, the converted area that had formerly been known as Golden Gate Park. 

Initially, when he had decided that it was logical to dedicate a portion of his time to community service he had chosen the refuge because he had thought that it would be like the _sehlat_ preserves on Vulcan, where domesticated _sehlats_ were allowed to roam freely amongst their wild kindred.

Upon seeing the refuge however, he had been disappointed to find that gigantic Terran beasts were not allowed to gambol joyously through city parks. 

Despite this initial disappointment, he had come to appreciate the strangeness of Terran foliage in its deciduous regions; the blue gum eucalyptus ( _eucalyptus globulus_ ) with its sharp, sour smell, the yellow needled insignus pines ( _pinus radiata_ ) and the towering, native California Live Oaks ( _quercus agrifolia_ ) whose acorns had been a source of food for Native Americans hundreds of years ago (the land on which the refuge stood had been fully ceded to the Ohlone and Coast Miwok tribes fifty years ago).

Spock had also been fascinated by the bison paddock, the slow, bearded ungulates of which provided him with hours of entertainment.

Particularly beautiful were the butterflies—a species not found on Vulcan—the monarchs, Green and Gray Hairstreaks, swallowtails and the particularly alluring West Coast Painted Lady, all of which Spock found fascinating.

He had also come to value even the refuge’s more grizzled denizens, the ones that split their time between urban and wild spaces—the squirrels, raccoons, and the coyote that he had glimpsed once late at night, yellow-eyed and trepidatious.

Slightly reluctant, Spock had asked if Jim would like to come.

“What’ll we be doing?” Jim had asked, eyes narrowed once again.

“Typically the work involves some form of ground maintenance such as the removal of invasive species, the re-planting of native flora, path clearing or the documentation of species type and abundance in key quadrants of forest.”

“Alright,” Jim had said, putting his baseball hat on and heading for the door.

The refuge was too far to reach by bicycle so Jim and Spock had caught a tram—one of the quick moving, modernized forms of street-level public transport. It’s population had reconstituted itself approximately every ten minutes as they had moved through the cities various quarters, its shifting demographics reflecting the tendency toward tribalism shared by most species despite their other differences.

Once the tram had finished its journey at the refuge, Jim and Spock had met with the other volunteers at the parks administrative center in the gray light of San Francisco’s 9:00 sky. Together they had donned gloves and ponchos, the latter in preparation for the light rain that was expected later that morning.

The first misty drops were indeed beginning to fall as the volunteers trooped out to Strawberry Hill bearing spades and trowels to rid the woods of the wild radish, German ivy, and hemlock that had been crowding out the growth of plants that provided nectar to the parks native butterflies.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/40405828693/in/dateposted-public/)

They had been split into different groups, so it wasn’t until nearly 1300 hours that Spock saw Jim’s persimmon-red poncho approaching through the trees. Spock, who was kneeling in soil, looked up and Jim handed him a sandwich with a supercilious expression.

“Where did this come from?” Spock asked. 

“I just wished really hard and suddenly it appeared," he said sardonically. "Where do you think Spock? You do this every week—how can you forget to bring a lunch?” Spock could’t tell if he was expressing exasperation or humor, as his words and face seemed to be at odds with one another. 

“Thank you,” Spock said, not sure how else to respond. 

“ _Huevón_ ,” Jim muttered, but sat down a few meters away with his back against the splitting trunk of an oak tree to eat his own sandwich.

“I do not own a hovercar,” Spock announces a few minutes later.  

“Okay?” Jim says, the word becoming three syllables in question.

“I ride my bicycle to campus,” Spock explains. “You will have to walk or take a tram to the ASI building tomorrow.”

Jim considers this for approximately 3.2 seconds. 

“Your bike has a rack on it. I could sit on that.”

Jim’s words create a mental picture in Spock’s mind which he briefly assesses.

“I do not believe such a position would provide appropriate security.”

“Don’t be such a _fresa_ Professor Spock. It’s totally safe. One time my friend and I rode that way from Riverside to the junction of the English and Iowa Rivers, over ten miles total, and it was fine, no one died etcetera.” 

“You are from Iowa?” Spock asks. 

“Here’s what will do,” Jim says, ignoring his question and standing up, which Spock suspects is meant to be an intimidation tactic. “I did the valve test on your bike yesterday night and the bearings need to be re-greased. I’ll repack them for you and in exchange you’ll give me rides. Deal?” Spock looks up at Jim’s calculating expression and hears his mothers words _“be accommodating”_ echo through his head again.

“That is acceptable,” Spock says, wondering how far his mother’s advice will be made to extend in future.

“Sweet, _gracias_ ,” Jim says grabbing his trowel and heading back towards his assigned section of the hill.

At 5:30 they take the tram home in the slanting light of early evening. By now the sun has burned away the early morning clouds and light suffuses the car like syrup, turning faces towards the ghostly rain that continues to fall outside. Jim is turned in his seat, his face pressed to the glass, for once appearing to have forgotten his constant guardedness. 

When the tram rounds a bend, into streets whose buildings block the sun and plunge the car back into shadow, Jim seems to notice this as well. Spock pretends to look away, watching from his peripheral vision as Jim’s whole body tenses, gaze darting up to look at Spock then at the rest of the cars inhabitants, none of whom had been paying any attention. He watches as Jim slowly slides back around so that his back is pressed against the wall of tram, his eyes occasionally flicking up to look at Spock throughout the rest of the ride home.

Spock doesn’t understand Jim’s behavior exactly. His dogged watchfulness is a clear sign—clear enough that even Spock’s obtuse emotional radar can detect it—that Jim is expecting something…bad to happen.

What that is or why Jim has this expectation, Spock has no idea.

He remembers what Pike had said about how he would be _“a good fit for this,”_ and how Spock had said that he would most assuredly not be. Pike had also said that Jim was distrustful of authority—was this what he had meant by that? If so, what else did Pike know? 

Although these questions are perturbing, Spock has no way of answering them at present for if Jim would not even answer a question as to whether he had lived in Iowa, Spock doubted he would relinquish information of a more personal nature.

When they get back to Spock’s apartment they take turns in the bathroom, both taking quick showers to wash away the dirt and relative cold of the day.

Jim reheats the rest of the _menudo_ in a pot on the stove and Spock boils water for tea.

“Would you like some?” he asks Jim. 

“Is it good?” 

“I do not know how to judge that by human standards.” 

“Can I smell?” Spock hands him his box of the purple leafed _ch’aal_ tea. Jim sniffs it, his eyes closing for a two fifths of a second.

“Yes please,” he says, handing the box back to Spock. 

“Why don’t you have a car?” Jim asks when they are sitting across from each other at the table.

“I do not need one,” Spock answers tersely. 

"So?" Jim prompts, and Spock resigns himself to giving a fuller explanation.

“On Vulcan it is considered illogical to posses that which one does not need. A bicycle is capable of serving as my form of transport at less cost both financial and spatial.”

What Spock does not mention is that his decision was also influenced by his private admiration of the bicycle’s role in the early Terran feminist, socialist and environmentalist movements. 

Jim, however appears to possess in abundance the skill which Spock so markedly lacks, for he appears to sense that Spock is leaving something unsaid.

“Is that the only reason?” he asks. 

“No,” Spock responds.

“What’s the other reason?” Jim prompts again, after having waited 3.90 seconds for the rest of an answer that he had apparently believed was forthcoming.

Spock is slightly irritated by this further question, but, as Vulcans do not lie, Spock responds honestly.

“The bicycle was a form of empowerment in early Terran feminist movements. It was also instrumental in providing independent mobility for impoverished working classes around the globe and later became an active method of protest for many stalwart environmentalists.”

“And you ride a bicycle because you...approve of this?” Jim asks, head tilted, perhaps indicating confusion.

“Yes,” Spock nods, leaving unsaid that he sometimes illogically imagines himself as one of those early cycling adaptors, going so fast that he becomes as free as the wind.

Jim possibly intuits something of this, for he looks at him with his brow furrowed as though he’s trying to work something out. Spock understands this expression well because it is one he has seen many times on the faces of his students when he has assigned a difficult in-class problem.

Jim doesn’t say anything else, instead leaning back in his chair and sipping his tea slowly.

Together they clean up the dishes and Jim disappears into the bedroom. Several hours later, when Spock enters his room in order to meditate, he sees Jim is sitting on the tiny balcony that extends just 1.12 meters out over the street. As Spock’s apartment is on the fifth floor, it provides an excellent view. It is possible that Jim thinks so as well for he has what appears to be a sketch pad in his lap.

Spock unrolls his meditation mat, his room illuminated only by the red glow of _yon_ , the brilliant burst of last-fire that the sun gives off before it sets. Spock lights his _arsenoi_ and positions himself in the _lesh’riq_ , the form in which the legs are tucked underneath the body. 

This time, before he begins his meditation, he thinks about what it was like to be 17 years old, hoping that doing so will perhaps give him insight into Jim’s behavior.

The process is not pleasant. It had been one of the worst years of his life, the year he had understood what attending the VSA would turn his life into and had not yet begun to think of Starfleet as a way out. He remembered how it had felt like being forced down an ever narrowing tunnel while being told that he would soon see the light on the other side. Even here in his own apartment, many years and thousands of miles away the memory is enough to make him feel claustrophobic.

His 18th _gad_ _t’keshtan_ , his 18th journey around Vulcan’s sun, had also been the year he had realized how different physiologically, not just genetically he was from the rest of his species.

Spock adjusts his position into the _ikapirak_ , the closed posture of meditation in which the head is bowed. He concentrates on the fire and imagines it slowly consuming a piece of parchment on which he has recorded the events of the day, and those of years past, watching it gradually turn into a smoke that is blown away by the wind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> pinches calles=fucking streets  
> escarpado=steep  
> fresa=snob (also means strawberry)  
> gracias=thank you  
> gracias por leer=thanks for reading
> 
> Please increase the level of joy in your life by listening to “[La Bamba](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLAWPrCUQQ0)” and imagining Jim singing it as he cooks vegetarian pozole for Spock.
> 
> Quick note on Catholicism: My personal headcanon (hope) for the Catholic church in the 22nd century is that they will have eradicated sex-abuse within the church, that they are pro-LGBTQ+, anti-corruption and that the pope is a woman. Let me know if you have thoughts. 
> 
> Things will get a tad more *dramatic* in the next chapter so get your hot pants on and be get ready. (there will always be warnings in the end notes for sensitive material).
> 
> Gracias por leer, my heart beats with ecstatic joy when you leave comments.


	4. Bad dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations at the end  
> Warnings/spoilers in end notes.

_"I could be bound in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space—were it not that I have bad dreams." -Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2_

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/47406588851/in/photostream/)

At 0825 the following morning two helmeted figures emerge onto the cool sidewalk outside Spock’s apartment building, one tall and skeptical, the other short and amused.

Spock looks dubiously at Jim, at his bicycle, and then back at Jim. Jim smiles and gestures towards the bike.

“Okay, get on like you normally would,” Jim says and waits, hands on hips while Spock does as instructed. 

“Now _vamos_ ,” Jim says, taking his seat on the rack and pulling his feet up.

Spock, not having understood, does nothing and Jim sighs. 

“Just pedal,” Jim says. 

Spock, still somewhat doubtful, does so.

It turns out to be surprisingly easy. The addition of Jim’s weight is hardly noticeable and if it weren’t for the occasional noises Jim made, he would scarcely have known he was there at all. 

When they had first jolted forward, Jim had let out a gasp that had almost made Spock stop short, momentarily worried that Jim’s plan had not worked. But Jim, perhaps sensing this had thumped his shoulder and said “No, no I’m fine, I’m fine. _Por Dios_ , you pedal fast.” After that, every time they went down a hill, or Spock took a turn particularly fast, Jim had let out an exclamation or curse, sounds that Spock was gradually becoming convinced were expressive of delight. Spock found this habit to be slightly disconcerting, if not annoying.

7.82 minutes of pavement and grey skies later, Jim is hopping off the back of his bicycle before it comes to a halt in front of the ASI building. He waves as still more disconcerted Spock nods to him and pedals away.

“Thanks Mr. Spock!” Jim shouts.

The rest of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday pass with little deviation from Spock’s usual routine, the only differences being the excitable passenger on his bicycle during his morning commute, coming home to Jim in the kitchen listening to the radio and cooking something and the sounds of someone else’s breathing when he falls asleep. 

Spock finds these changes, while not exactly unpleasant, increasingly unsettling. He is used to having his apartment to himself and sharing it with a Terran human with strange ways different from his own is tiring and stressful when he wants to be alone.

This sense of never being alone leaves him feeling harried and short-tempered, so he spends extra time in meditation trying to dispel these feelings.

Despite this, on Thursday afternoon Spock gives Jim a tour of his lab. The night before Jim had asked “So what is it that you even do? Chris said it had something to do with energy, and he’s a smart guy, but to be honest, I don’t think he could tell a hovercar battery from the intake manifold of an impulse engine.” It had taken Spock 1.80 seconds to realize that “Chris” referred to Captain Pike. 

“That is perhaps overstating his incomprehension,” Spock had said, but Jim had just raised his eyebrows, the corners of his mouth turning up.

“I know for a fact that it’s not because I watched him do it,” Jim says, smiling wider. “He pointed at a manifold and asked an engineer ‘where that battery was supposed to go.’ The guy looked so confused—you know how engineers aren’t exactly hired for their people skills—I had to go hide behind a pylon so I could laugh.” 

Spock had offered to show Jim his lab on the basis that he apparently _could_ tell a battery from an intake manifold and that in doing so he would be fulfilling part of his promise to Pike.

On Thursday Jim meets Spock outside of Science Building A at 4:30, having walked the few remaining blocks between ASI Tech and campus. 

Jim, who is leaning against the solar-thermal cladding of the building’s exterior, has a hard look in his eyes as he surveys the campus. Spock, who cannot begin to guess what the look means, gestures him inside and leads the way to his laboratory on the third floor. As they walk up the stairs Spock explains that each floor contains the labs and classrooms belonging to a specific department of science or mathematics. Floor one is statistical mechanics; floor two, materials chemistry; floor three, physical chemistry and so on.  

When they reach Spock’s lab, Spock unlocks the door and props it open, thinking of the way Jim tenses in enclosed spaces. Spock has turned the laser off and the lights on so Jim walks around, looking at the various instruments and monitors.  

“What’s all this for?” he asks, gesturing at the table in the center of the room, the top of which is taken up by a zero-gravity containment field and the delicate path of lenses that Spock uses to direct his lasers beam.

“That,” Spock says, pointing to the table, “is the optical path of the infrared laser I use to imitate redshifted starlight.”

“What for?”

“To optimize the conditions under which stellar emissions can be harnessed as energy and converted into fuel.”

“So like solar panels—but for starlight? Like stellar panels?” Jim asks, tilting his head to the side and Spock nods. “How do you make up for the light having lost most of its energy on the waltz over?” 

“Waltz?” Asks Spock, confused by the image of light making its way across the sky in triple-time.

“On its journey,” Jim clarifies.

“An important question. Solar panels are, of course, not powerful enough to make the faint light of distant stars into a viable form of energy,” says Spock, slipping into his lecture mode without realizing it. “This is because most solar panels are currently constructed from crystalline-silicon solar cells which are made up of monocrystalline silicon, whose crystal structure has a maximum magnification limit. The use of amorphous silicon, however enables the formation of a superstate in zero gravity conditions which both reduces the width of the photovoltaic cells and increases their net energetic magnification by a factor of 109,” Spock finishes, gesturing to one of the small prototypes he has been working with, and looking at Jim, expecting to see his eyes glazed over. Jim however, looks… fascinated.

“Wicked. So, amorphous silicon—how does it work?” 

“It is indeed fascinating,” Spock says. And it is. He explains how amorphous silicon possesses a unique ability to both retain its crystalline structure while also contorting itself around a light path, his words growing freer with each look or word of interest from Jim.

While it is plain that Jim is not particularly knowledgeable about physical chemistry, or indeed scientific theory in general, his mind is quick and practical and Jim is endlessly curious.

“Like this?” Jim asks, drawing something on a piece of scrap paper. 

“Partially, however—” Spock takes the paper from Jim and corrects his diagram. At Jim’s prompting he explains how the optical path he has designed is able to mimic the redshift. He explains how he intends to prevent degradation in space, how they are working to create “smart” power optimizers by embedding the photovoltaic modules with electronics.  

Soon the page is covered with spiky ink drawings and diagrams, done in Spock’s careful handwriting and Jim’s oblique script. 

“So the goal,” Jim says, smiling slightly, as they walk out of the lab and into the sunlit hallway, “is that by reducing the tax on the warp engines, you’ll reduce the Federation’s dependance on dilithium crystals.”

“Precisely,” Spock says, making a small involuntary gesture with his hand, a slight display of his animated feelings. “And by lessening this dependance, diminish the environmental toll on dilithium rich planets.”

“You mean cutting down on all those back-room deals that end up screwing over native life forms,” Jim says. 

“Yes, you are essentially correct.” 

“Well you're a good teacher," Jim says, considering. "Which is probably why you're a _huevo_. You know what you're doing is going to make somebody rich and powerful very unhappy, right?”

Despite Jim's equivocation, Spock feels illogically gratified by this praise. Of the things he is usually called, 'good teacher' is not generally one of them, his students generally finding him pedantic and uncompromising. 

“My colleagues have brought this possibility to my attention. Despite its other faults, on Vulcan, the progress of science and the protection of life would never be thwarted for the sake of accumulating wealth," Spock says. "Such hinderance is most _illogical_.”

Jim smirks over his shoulder at Spock as he walks towards the stairs.

“ _Huevón,_ you say that like you’re surprised.”

***

Jim waits at a table in a chemistry resource room on the second floor while Spock goes back to his newly dark laboratory. 

At 1830 hours they bike back to Spock’s apartment through the warm tangle of San Fransisco’s streets under the peculiar blue of the Terran evening sky. 

Friday passes in a similarly quiet way. Jim makes something with sweet potatoes and avocado for dinner. When Spock takes a bite his face must show how good it is because Jim bursts out laughing, the sound happy and filling the room like a living thing.

That night, Spock notices, is the first on which Jim falls asleep before him.

On Saturday they go to the market again.

Spock's meditation had been poor that morning and he feels the cumulative emotional strain of the past week pressing at his mind. He clenches his hands in his pockets as they prepare to leave, attempting to somehow physically mitigate what he is having difficulty controlling within his mind..

“What do you call that exercise you do every morning?” Jim asks as Spock retrieves his reusable grocery bags from a hook by the refrigerator.

“It is called the _Suus Mahna_ ,” Spock explains, trying not to tense his jaw. “It is a ritual form of marshal art taught to most Vulcan children.” 

“What do you mean ritual?” Jim asks as he holds open the door for Spock.

“It is a practice that predates the Surakian reformation. As such its tenets contain vestiges of Vulcan’s pre-reform theistic belief system.” Spock replies, hoping that will be all.

"Theistic beliefs? How is a martial art connected to that?" Jim asks.

Spock answers, unsure of how to communicate that he does not wish to converse. “In its original conception it was a form of _vaikaya_ , that is, a commitment to serve the gods of the _Suus Mahna_. Each pose belongs to a particular god and in taking that pose, the practitioner was thought to take on the attributes of that god in combat.” 

“So,” he asks slowly as they exit out onto the street, “since Surak’s reform, does anyone still believe in the gods?” 

“To do so would be illogical,” Spock answers with perhaps more sharpness then he intends. _I am not going to be human with you_ , he thinks. They walk in silence for exactly 40.54 seconds before Jim speaks again.

“Do you have a favorite?” he asks.

“A favorite what?” 

“A favorite god.” 

“Vulcans do not entertain arbitrary preferences,” Spock responds, again with too much sharpness. Either his tone or his words get a scowl from Jim. 

“What did I tell you about not being a _fresa_?” Jim asks, the unmistakable signs of frustration beginning to color his voice: the lower pitch, the higher intensity, and a frequency oscillating between approximately 700 and 850 Hz.

“As I do not know what that word means, I am not sure what you expect to gain by assigning it to me,” Spock retorts.

“It means snob, Spock.” Here Jim pauses momentarily. “Well it also means strawberry, but right now it means snob.”

“I see,” Spock says, not seeing, and not wanting to. 

“Look, what I _meant_ was, is there any god that you find particularly _fascinating?_ ” Jim says, raising his eyebrows and saying the word like it is a carrot, clearly trying to change his approach.

Spock however remains stubbornly silent.  _Vulcans do not entertain arbitrary preferences_ , he thinks, feeling the scar on his abdomen tingle.

“What’s your _problem_?” Jim asks, the frequency of his voice increasing above 1000 Hz. 

“I do not have, as you say, 'a problem _,'_ ” Spock says as they arrive at the outskirts of the market. Jim turns an angry red at this and swivels to one of the carts and grabs a strawberry from a free sample plate.

“Here,” Jim says. “Why don’t you eat one of yourself, you— _¡chingada fresa!_ ” saying these last words so loudly that several market goers turn their heads as Jim shoves the strawberry against Spock’s shirt and disappears quickly into the crowd.

Spock looks down at his shirt where he had automatically clasped the strawberry to prevent it from falling. Underneath it is a red stain. _I have been a child_ , Spock thinks.

It takes Spock almost twenty minutes to find Jim. When he does, it is by a stall full of vegetables. Jim is examining asparagus spears and ignores Spock when he approaches. 

After several minutes during which Jim examines the same vegetables over and over, Jim turns around to face Spock, his mouth opening angrily. 

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/33522578878/in/dateposted-public/)

Spock never finds out what he was going to say for Jim’s gaze suddenly snaps to something behind Spock. Spock turns and sees nothing except for an old Caucasian man walking toward them in a straw sunhat. Jim however has tensed completely, sliding nearer to Spock and positioning himself in what Spock recognizes as a joint defensive stance.

“What is it Jim?” Spock asks quietly as the man moves towards them. Jim doesn’t answer, eyes never leaving the mans lined and withered face, pivoting slightly to keep his exposed side shielded by Spock’s body. 

The moment ends as abruptly as it began when it becomes clear the man is not coming towards them, headed instead to strike up a lively conversation with one of the berry vendors. Spock watches him laughing, and wonders what Jim thought he had seen.

When he looks back at Jim, he is once more nosing through the stack of asparagus as though nothing had happened. Spock notices however that the number of Jim’s watchful glances has increased in rapidity, and they leave the market soon after, lingering much less than they had the previous Saturday.

***

That night Spock dreams for the first time in his life.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/33522578068/in/dateposted-public/)

It is horrible.

There are monsters eating the children, the dead eating the dead.

There is a little boy with beautiful hair crying and a woman, her eyes wild and intense gripping his elbows and saying “Do you think I would let you starve? I would cut off my own arm to feed you. Then you will _know_ you are _my son_.”

“Hurry, _lik’ichiri_ is coming,” someone says and the villagers start running.

There is a group of children lying huddled on the ground. A man wearing a sunhat wanders out from the gray mass of distance. He leans on a walking stick and his is skin white as bone. He walks slowly, getting closer and closer to the group of sleeping children. When he gets near enough Spock sees that his white face is shriveled and that his body is unnaturally thin. Slowly, he leans down and picks up a child. Delicately, he clamps his mouth, which has suddenly become a set of ravening jaws onto the child’s neck and begins to suck all the fat from his body. The other children wake up screaming and they run in all different directions. When the _lik’ichiri_ drops the child, it is a skeleton. The man picks up his staff and walks on unhurriedly, following the children.

There is a man with a dark beard standing on a rooftop, children huddled inside. He’s telling the children to go to sleep. His arms turn into huge black wings, and he flies off into the night like a giant nightmarish bird, circling high over head. 

“Don’t go to sleep. Otherwise _el Cuco_ will take us away,” the children whisper.

The same woman from before sits, her head is tilted downwards, obscuring her face. She’s rocking something in her arms, and singing softly in words that switch between English and Spanish. 

“ _Yasy Yateré, eres un pedazo de la luna_ , a piece of the moon. _Tus siete hermanos son tan feos, pero tú eres el único hermoso_. All your brothers are ugly, they have the heads of dogs and the tales of snakes, _son la muerte y la infermedad_ , death and plague. They have eaten this planet. I brought them into this world because of love and now we are all paying the price, _el pago_ , and you alone are beautiful.”

The woman looks up and her face is eyeless. The child slides off her lap, a beautiful long-haired boy with blue eyes and blonde hair. He smiles and bites off the woman’s arm. 

Spock wakes with a shout.

He is disoriented for a few moments, not knowing where he is, his suprachiasmic nucleus misfiring, leaving his internal clock momentarily absent. _That was Jim_ , he thinks in a panic. Then he hears a whimpering sound coming from Jim’s corner. Without thinking he pushes himself up, towards Jim who is thrashing wildly in his sleep.

Spock instinctively catches one of Jim’s wrists as it careens towards the wall. 

As soon as skin touches skin, Jim’s eyes fly open.

Jim screams, his leg jerking upwards to knee Spock in the groin, his hands flying to Spock’s face to claw at his eyes. Spock gasps in pain as he feels a wave of terror and hatred wash through him as their skin comes in contact, his hands automatically securing Jim’s wrists and his thigh trapping Jim’s kicking legs. Jim is still screaming, his mind a chaos— _who are you? Where am I? Notgoingtodie_. 

“Jim, I will not hurt you,” he says, responding to the emotions he feels flowing into him as Jim continues to struggle violently against him. “I am Spock. You are safe, you are in San Fransisco, California, in my apartment, you are safe,” he says again and again, trying to push the truth of his words through Jim’s skin. 

He feels it take hold in Jim’s emotional output before he sees the change in his eyes—a drop of doubt in a sea of ferocious anger and fear. He lets go of Jim’s wrists and backs away.

Jim is still panting, his breaths beginning to come in wet rasps that shake his entire body, his face contorting in an effort to hold back tears.

Feet away Spock can still feel his emotions roiling the air with desperation, and they trigger a memory of feeling his own face look that way the time—

Spock clenches his teeth, repressing that part of the memory for that way lies _Tyr-al-tep_ , the Unforgiver, whose whispers make the scar on his abdomen itch.

Instead he focuses on how his mother had held him as he cried and how that had been comforting. 

So before he can change his mind he reaches out and gently pats Jim on his shoulder.

For a few seconds he feels Jim’s desire to _flee, to be anywhere but here—_ and then Jim is hugging him and crying into his shoulder, body shuddering as it expels all the anger and sadness trapped inside. 

They stay that way for between fifteen and twenty three seconds, Spock losing an exact count as he tries to project feelings of calm and serenity.

Eventually though Jim’s sobs subside into quiet gasps and then stop altogether.

“I’m sorry,” he says hoarsely. “You weren’t supposed to see that.” He lets go of Spock and leans against the wall, closing his eyes looking small and pale.

Spock sits back as well.

“What did I see?” Spock asks quietly and Jim hesitates visibly for 11.9 seconds before responding.

“I… I don’t know if I can… I don’t know if I can talk about it out loud.” He closes his eyes briefly and then opens again. Spock can feel his determination color the air. “No, I can. Have you heard of—” here he shuts his eyes again. “Have you heard of Tarsus IV?” Jim opens his eyes again looking at Spock.

“Yes Jim. Were you there?” Spock asks although he already knows the answer.

Jim nods in confirmation. “It was more than three years ago but I still… the man at the market today, he reminded me of—” here Jim breaks off again, looking too upset to speak.

“Come with me,” Spock says, getting up and going to the kitchen, Jim following slowly behind.

Spock reaches into the refrigerator and takes out the bottle of milk that Jim had bought that day. He pours some into a pot that he puts on the stove and gets cinnamon out of his spice drawer and sugar from a bag that he has had so long the crystals have become a solid block. He chips some off and puts it into the pot on the stove. 

He holds up his hands in front of the burner, allowing them to absorb the heat. He feels Jim step up beside him and do the same. 

"How were you even there?" Jim asks quietly. "I could feel you in my dream."

"I am not sure. It is possible your emotions were so strong that I was... summoned by them." 

They wait in silence until the milk is hot enough. When it is, Spock takes out two mugs and pours milk into both, handing one to Jim and sitting at the table. 

“My mother made this for me several times when I was young,” he says as Jim sits down.

“I’m not a baby,” Jim says, but he takes a sip of the milk anyway.

“Why did your mom make you something with cinnamon?” Jim asks, wiping his still wet face with his sleeve after a long moment of silence. “I thought that was a human spice.”

Spock closes his eyes for the briefest of moments.

“My mother is human,” he responds, opening them again. “She has a great… admiration for cinnamon.” Jim’s eyes widen, his mouth parting slightly.

“I didn’t know that was possible,” he says after a moment.

“Neither did my parents. I am the only half-Vulcan half-human in existence.”

“That must be lonely,” Jim comments.

“ _Kaiidth_.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means ‘what is, is.’”

Jim looks at him as though expecting him to say more, and when it becomes apparent that this is all he says “Okay _vato,_ not to shit on your cultural wisdom, but that kind of sucks.”

“Sucks?”

“It sucks, like that’s dumb—it’s like ‘ _lo que será, será_ ,” whatever happens, happens and we can’t change it. I hate that shit.”

“Perhaps it is not something a human could take comfort in,” Spock reflects. “Its purpose is not to provide comfort but to remind the hearer that it is only by recognizing the truth for what it is in reality that we can accept it.”

“ _Huevo_ , you really suck at cheering people up,” Jim says decidedly, his mouth quirking into a smile and belying his words. “If you have any aspirations towards being a therapist or a motivational speaker, I need to tell you now it’s never going to happen.”

“It is quite fortunate then, that I have never had any such ambition,” Spock replies dryly, his mouth twitching. 

“Oh my God, you totally just made a joke! I swear to God that was a joke,” Jim says, now fully grinning.

“I do not know to what you are referring,” Spock replies primly, raising an eyebrow. Jim bursts out laughing, covering his mouth with a hand and Spock feels his mouth twitch again. 

They finish their milk and Spock washes the mugs while Jim goes to the bathroom. Spock hears the water tap turn on and the sound of splashing. Spock goes to the bedroom and lies down.

A few minutes later Jim enters and lies down as well.

“Good night Spock,” Jim says in the darkness.

“Good night Jim,” Spock says back, the words coming as naturally as they had in childhood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Nightmare and panic attack (involving Tarsus IV, violent imagery, violence done to children). If you want to skip this part, stop reading when it says “That night Spock dreams,” and pick back up again with “I’m sorry.”
> 
> Translations:  
> chingada fresa=fucking snob  
> eres un pedazo de la luna= piece of the moon  
> tus siete hermanos son tan feos, pero tú eres el único hermoso=your seven brothers are ugly, but you are the only beautiful one  
> son la muerte y la infermedad=they are death and sickness  
> el pago=the price  
> lo que será, será=what will be will be
> 
> Mythology: Jim’s dream is full of several mythological figures from Central American folklore including lik’ichiri, better known as Pishtaco, who is a white-faced demon who sucks the fat from his victims and represents the greed of colonial Spain. There is also “El Cuco” who is a demonic bird creature who sits on the roofs of houses like a nightmare and steals children and Yasy Yateré, the only beautiful child of the seven demonic offspring of Taú (the spirit of evil) and Keraná (the spirit of dreams).
> 
> Note: There is a quote stolen from the movie "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" in the nightmare sequence.
> 
> As always, all comments, questions and responses will be read, re-read as I weep tears of joy, and responded to post-haste.


	5. Call it ice plant, sour fig, or pigface—whatever you like, but it’s gotta go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> or, in which baby, Spock just hasn't earned it yet.

Pike comes to pick Jim up as per arranged the following morning. 

“Jim, Spock,” he says nodding to them both. “It’s good to see you didn’t kill each other.” Jim and Spock glance at each other, Pike’s pronouncement, ironic though it was, gets a little too near the truth. Pike, of course, catches the look.

“No, I don’t want to know. Jim, how many times do I have to tell you that attacking someone isn’t a good way to settle an argument—no matter how,” here he looks at Spock, “ _logical_ the person is being.”

“Why do you assume it was me?” Jim says, his mouth open in an exaggerated expression of offense, clearly no stranger to misdirection.

“Because I’m allowed to fire Spock if he doesn’t behave, whereas you—” Pike says, glaring at Jim.

“Jim did not misbehave,” Spock says quickly, attempting to prevent further argument. “In fact he was an excellent house guest.” At this Pike looks incredulously at Jim who flushes slightly.

“How’d you do it?” Pike asks.

“Do what?” Jim says indignantly.

“Get a compliment from a Vulcan! I’ve known him,” Pike says, pointing at Spock, “for over three years and he’s never even asked me about my day. And all of a sudden you waltz in here and you’re ‘ _excellent?_ ’” _‘Waltz’ again_ , Spock thinks.

“Hey, don’t be mad at me for your relationship insecurities, _viejo_ ,” Jim says gesturing between Pike and Spock. “How can I help it if I’m naturally charming? Besides I think it was my kickass _pozole_ , and even you can’t argue with that."

“You’re right, I can’t,” says Pike, smiling and looking over at Spock. “Alright Spock, we’ll get out of your hair—I mean, we’ll leave you alone now. Thanks again for watching this monster,” Pike says, trying to mess a hand through Jim’s hair without looking away from Spock. Jim, who ducks the attempt, reaches up to mess Pike’s hair in retaliation. “We’ll see you soon,” Pike finishes, twisting to dodge Jim’s attack. 

Then the door is opening and Pike is stepping out, Jim behind him. Before he’s fully left though, Jim twists back around.

“See you around _Huevo_ ,” he says, his smile like a bolt of lighting and his eyes speaking of so many ineffable things. And then Jim is turning back around and the door is closing behind him.

Alone in his apartment, on the bustling tram ride and at the wildlife refuge Spock has plenty of time to think that day as he pulls up square foot after square foot of the invasive South African _carpobrotus edulis,_ which his fellow volunteers alternately call “ice plants,” “sour fig,” or simply “pigface.”

He thinks about how the day before had started so ordinarily and how quickly it had spun out of his control. He thinks about the way Jim’s face had looked, both crumpled up and churning with emotion in the dark and its smooth and carefree appearance belonging to the blue-eyed, long-haired child in the dream. 

He thinks about earlier in the day, when Jim had asked if anyone still believed in the gods, if he had a favorite, and how he had snapped, hearing Jim’s innocent questions as provocations—the kind his schoolmates, half intrigued and half disgusted, had asked him in order to try and catch him in some unseemly display of emotion. 

He thinks about how, for his whole life it was safer—was necessary—to hide his emotions and how now this very safeguard is what causes him to be cruel to his mother, and now to Jim—and yet how, without this surety, the universe would cease to be explicable.

At 1:00, no one hands him a sandwich when he realizes that he has forgotten his lunch again.

Later in the day, when the sun has risen higher and evaporated all the morning condensation, as he helps seed the ground with native asters, seaside daisies, and coastal buckwheat, his thoughts turn to what he knows of Tarsus IV.

He, like every member of the Federation, had heard about this latest, terrible holocaust; about the famine, the riots, and the almost 4,000 colonists who had been killed in an instant within Kodos’ antimatterchamber. He thinks about the horror inside Jim’s mind and wonders if for Jim too, the rules that had once kept him safe and alive on a dying planet were now the very monsters eating him from the inside.

On the tram ride home no one presses their face against the window and loses themselves looking out at the miraculous light. 

When he gets back to his apartment he doesn’t have to wait to take a shower and after he is done, no one turns on the radio or gives him a bowl of “vegan- _pozole_ -but-don’t-you-breathe-a-word-about-the-vegan-part.“ No one interrupts his schedule or speaks to him in a language he can’t understand and there is an absence of a myriad of other small irritations. 

It is, of course, illogical to miss these things.

At 0700 hours he opens the refrigerator to make a half-hearted attempt at cooking dinner. Glancing at its contents, his eyes snap to where his largest tupperware is sitting on the top shelf. It has a note on it and is full of vegan- _pozole_ -I-will-not-mention-that-it-is-vegan-but-I-do-not-understand-why-I-shouldn’t—that’s-because-you-don’t-have-a-Mexican-grandmother-Spock. 

Spock takes out the tupperware. On the note there is a drawing of an egg with pointed ears and a masterly lack of expression under the words “You’re welcome _Huevón,_ ” in Jim's slanting hand. 

Spock holds the note in his hand for 3.62 seconds. He sets it carefully on the counter and turns on the radio as he prepares to heat up some soup. A voice begins to croon to the sound of a jangling guitar track.      

_"If you're wondering why_  
_All the love that you long for eludes you_  
_And people are rude and cruel to you_  
_I'll tell you why..._

_You just haven't earned it yet, baby_  
_You must suffer and cry for a longer time!"_  

Spock switches the dial on the radio off. _How illogical_ , he thinks.

***

The weeks of the summer pass as they have passed before, altered only by his perplexing thoughts. Spock still works in his laboratory, volunteers every Sunday at the wildlife refuge, and speaks to his mother every other week.

“How did the babysitting go Spock?” she asks the following Thursday during their call. Spock pauses for too long, unsure of how to answer.

“Are you alright? Did something go wrong?” Amanda asks, worried.

“I am well. Nothing injurious occurred.”

“That’s a little vague Spock.”

“It was meant to be reassuring,” Spock says, continuing to be evasive. He does not want to tell Jim’s secrets. His mother sighs; with a Vulcan son and husband, she knows which battles to pick.

“How was James? Did you get along?”

“He goes by Jim,” Spock corrects automatically. “He was… somewhat mystifying,” Spock says, knowing that this word is woefully inadequate to capture Jim’s strange combination of disconcerting humor, unlikely intelligence and constant wariness, and yet not sure how else to describe him. “He is a very able cook and bicycle repairperson,” he says instead.

“Really? What did he make?” says Amanda looking fascinated by the idea that someone might cook well. 

“He made several dishes that I believe he learned from his grandmother, although I surmised that he adapted them to be vegetarian at what he described as great personal cost.”

“Fascinating,” his mother says without irony. “And he fixed your bike?”

“He did so twice, although the second time I believe it was a matter of personal enjoyment rather than necessity,” Spock says, remembering how Jim had disappeared down to the garage for over an hour and how he had found him down there, hands covered in grease and a smile on his face.

“And that was mystifying?” 

“Partly. He also had an irritating habit of speaking to me in Spanish, a language I do not speak.” His mother then says something in Spanish, which as he has _just_ stated, Spock does _not_ understand.

“I did not know that you speak this language as well,” Spock says, slightly nettled. Amanda grins. 

“I’ve been trying to read world literature in its original language of composition. I decided to start with Italian and Spanish because they’re the closest to French.”

“Perhaps this task will give you insight into _why_ someone would choose to speak to someone in a language they do not understand,” Spock says looking at her pointedly. Amanda laughs.

“I hate to say this,” Amanda says, clearly not hating to, “but it might have been to get a rise out of you.”

“A rise?”

“A reaction. Sometimes you’re hard to get to know Spock. It probably means he likes you.”

“I am not certain of that,” Spock says, entirely honest. Amanda gives him a look that he does not understand. Her eyes are soft and there is a slight tilt to her mouth.

“I can’t imagine why anyone wouldn’t like you.”

“You are my mother. I imagine that makes such a task difficult.”

“Impossible,” she says, smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short chapter today. Spock had to think over a few things before he and Jim meet again in the next chapter. 
> 
> Here's the song he was listening to: ["You Just Haven't Earned it Yet Baby"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dh2bRJcE7I8) by the Smiths
> 
> viejo=old man
> 
> Thanks you for your readership, I luv comments ty :)


	6. "They do not pay us for our people-skills."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spanish translations at the end

It is three weeks before he sees Jim again. He had been invited to attend a social gathering celebrating the North American “Fourth of July” holiday hosted at Captain Pike’s house, a large (by San Fransisco standards) town house located in the Upper Haight neighborhood, a twenty minute bike ride from Spock’s apartment in the Mission district. 

Despite it’s relative closeness, Spock had not been inclined to accept Pike’s invitation. Large gatherings of beings made it more obvious than usual that he did not 'fit in.'

“Come on Spock, half the science faculty will be there,” Pike had cajoled.

“I do not see how that is a cogent argument in favor of my attendance.” At this he had heard Pike sigh over the phone, a suspiration that lasted exactly 3.21 seconds.

“You’re hard work, you know that Spock?”

“Thank you Captain.” 

“That’s not what I—look, can’t you think of this as—I don’t know, improving group dynamics by interacting in a non-work setting?”

“If you believe that my performance has been lacking—” 

“Spock that’s not what I meant and you know it.” He heard Pike sigh again (2.10 seconds). “I didn’t want to play this card, but you’re an awfully obstinate person for someone who was billed as being so reasonable. The thing is, Jim will be there and I might need someone to look after him.”

“I do not see why this circumstance should necessitate my presence as there will be many other adults in attendance who—“

“Spock. You _know_ what I mean,” Pike had said heavily. Spock, who did know what he meant, had agreed to come.

So it is that on Friday night, when the sun is setting red in the west, Spock dawns his helmet and bikes the twenty minutes over to Captain Pike’s house.

“What’s that you have there Spock?” Number One asks him, smiling slightly as she opens the door. Spock looks down at the bag of dehydrated vegetable chips in his hands and then extends it to Number One, who accepts it automatically.

“I have been informed that it is an accepted human custom to bring a comestible item of low nutritional value and high lipid or sugar content to social gatherings,” says Spock stiffly.

“That’s exactly right, thank you Spock,” she says, smiling a small smile again and gesturing him to come in. 

Upon entering the house he is greeted by a wash of sensory and psychic inputs. Despite having an almost eidetic memory, Spock always seemed to forget how loud the thoughts and feelings of party goers were. 

Without hearing any individual thoughts, their collective presence feels immense in such a crowded, jovial room.

Slightly disoriented, he follows Number One through the blaze of minds to where Captain Pike stands talking to several people whose faces Spock does not recognize.

“Chris,” Number One says, touching his arm lightly to get his attention. “Spock’s here.”

“Spock! You made it!” Pike says in an exhale on which Spock detects the faint scent of alcohol on his breath. Taken together with his slightly flushed face, and the vast quantities of alcohol located on a nearby table, Spock calculates a 94.8% chance that the Captain is mildly intoxicated. 

“Yes, evidently,” Spock says.

After Pike enthusiastically introduces him to his interlocutors, the conversation quickly moves beyond Spock’s purview, to what he has long noted is a staple of human conversation—that is, the discussion of other people and their private relationships. 

Spock has never been able to follow conversations of this sort. Not only is the subject material of little interest to him, but he also finds it difficult to process so many crowded voices speaking at once. 

Beginning to feel his mind start to lag on the overabundance of inputs, Spock bows slightly to Captain Pike and makes his way towards a table with drinks on it. He pours himself a glass of water and moves to a relatively quiet corner where the psychic buzz is not so loud.

For 8.30 minutes he watches the way various people move fluidly between conversations, the way groups form, grow, and eventually break up like islands of silt in a stream. He does not understand the reason behind the movements he sees and yet each appears almost choreographed in its execution, clearly laden with some impenetrable purpose. 

“ _…this alien earth I stride…”_ his thoughts whisper, catching on this fragment of a line from one of his mothers’ favorite poems. The phrase is surprisingly apt, despite the illogic of its origin.

In all 8.30 minutes he does not see Jim, leading him to believe that Pike’s serious tone over his comm had been a method of manipulating him into coming. Spock would pinch the bridge of his nose if he were fully human. He is not, however, so he merely contents himself with imagining doing so.

He decides to make a short circuit of the perimeter of the house to ascertain the truth of his suspicion before leaving. He makes his way through the crowded house, starting with the first floor and then to the second. It isn’t till he reaches the third and last floor that he spots Jim, standing near an open window in an animated conversation with three others. 

Jim’s eyes find him as he enters the room, their gazes meeting briefly before Jim smiles crookedly and lifts his chin in a nod. Although his stance appears casual, Spock, who spent over a week with him, can read wariness in the line of his back.

Of the three he is speaking to Spock recognizes two; Professor Onet, a Bajorian member of the chemistry faculty, and Dr. Chapel, a third year cadet currently conducting research in partnership with the chemistry department. The third, a Terran woman whom Spock does not recognize, has a hand casually placed on Dr. Chapel’s lower back.

At Jim’s nod, his three interlocutors turn to see Spock.

“Spock!” Dr. Chapel says, her eyes widening slightly. “It’s nice to see you at one of these things.”

“Do you two know each other?” the second woman asks in a euphonious voice, gesturing between Jim and Spock. Spock has no choice but to approach.

“Oh, Number One told me earlier today,” Professor Onet says before Spock can answer. “You’ve been babysitting, right Spock?” At this, Jim shoots a glare at Onet that the man misses entirely. 

“That is correct,” Spock says somewhat stiffly. There is something disconcerting about entering a conversation in its middle.

“Oh my god!” Chapel says, looking at Jim and then back at Spock, her eyes widening. “Don’t you see?” she says to Onet excitedly. “This solves the mystery!”

“What mystery?” ask Jim and the second woman at the same time. Onet’s eight eyes sparkle as he too looks at Jim and then at Spock, his nose ridges crinkling in amusement and his face breaking into a grin.

“It was what the whole chemistry department and half the physics department was gossiping about for almost two weeks straight!” Onet begins excitedly. “A few weeks ago, out of no where,” here Onet makes a quick hand gesture, “Spock started bringing these lunches that smelled amazing—”

“And we were all so confused,” Chapel interrupts. “Because Spock always eats the darndest things—no offense Spock,” she says looking at Spock apologetically. 

“Like orange peels and moss and stuff—” Onet interjects.

“And the long and short of it is, we were all sure—"

"—that you’d found a girlfriend!” Onet finishes.

“But now it all makes sense,” Chapel says gesturing at Jim. Spock looks over at Jim, who to his concern, is blushing an alarming shade of red. 

“We spent all of two weeks wondering what she was like—” Onet begins, apparently not noticing Jim’s reaction.

 _Jim was right_ , Spock thinks. _They do not pay us for our people-skills._

“Or if she was a he or a they—” here Chapel breaks off when the second woman lays a hand on her arm.

“I think that’s enough gossip for now babe,” she says, perhaps having noticed Jim’s expression or Spock’s lack of one. 

Looking at Jim’s red face, Spock recalls a fascinating theory which posited that blushing was a visible manifestation of the fight or flight mechanism when physical action was impossible. And if this theory was to believed, Jim’s color suggested an intense desire to flee, possibly by defenestration.

For some reason, Spock has a strong inkling that this course of action was well within the range of Jim’s capabilities.

So, in an effort to prevent such a dramatic escape—the risk of injury from jumping out a third story window were almost 100%—Spock attempts to change the topic of conversation. 

“I do not believe that we have met,” Spock says, holding up a _ta’al_ to the woman he does not know. “I am Spock.”

“I’m Nyota, Nyota Uhura,” the woman says, straightening slightly and holding up a perfect  _ta’al_   of her own. “I’m a first year at the academy—well second year in September. Communications major. I’m here over the summer doing research.”

“What is the subject of your research?” Spock asks. It is somewhat unusual for a first year to be awarded a research grant.

“We were just talking about that when you showed up,” Cadet Uhura tells him. “I’m expanding on new research—the Iosua-Watson paper from last March that’s been making waves, did you read it?—which suggests that there are actually _three_ dialects of Romulan, not two—like most people have thought since the Bernoulli transmissions. I’m using some archival transcripts that belong exclusively to Starfleet to support their thesis.”

Spock, who _had_ read the Iosua-Watson paper, (published in the _Journal of Xenolinguistics_ 3.3 months previous) proceeded to ask her several more questions until Chapel and Onet pull her away to chase a rumor that had just started circulating around the room about fireworks starting.

“ _Hasta luego_ ,” Jim says, apparently recovered, winking at Cadet Uhura as she turns to go. Uhura grins back, responding in Spanish, saying something that makes Jim laugh before she's being pulled away.

“She’s _bien encarada_ ,” Jim says, watching Cadet Uhura leave. 

“What does that mean?” Spock asks.

Jim considers him for a moment.

“I don’t think you’d understand even if I translated it,” he says finally. “So, what are you doing here _güero_? This doesn't exactly seem like your kind of scene.”

“Captain Pike requested that I attend,” Spock replies shiftily, leaving out the reason why. Jim shoots him a raised-eyebrows look that suggests he is not fooled.

“Don’t you think it’s too loud in here?” Jim asks abruptly. “Pike told me there’s going to be fireworks down by the water—big ones, not the little janky ones they’re going to light here. Do you want to come with me to see them? I’ll be quieter,” Jim asks, an unreadable expression in his eyes.

Spock, who wants nothing more than to leave the overabundant noise and intoxicated psychic chatter of this gathering, quickly agrees, not sure if Jim’s suggestion was for his benefit or for his own. 

Together they make their way quickly through the house, the untidy spill of inebriated thoughts lapping at the edges of Spock's mind and making him feel slightly dizzy.

Outside, the air is hazy with heat and smoke and, when his head clears, Spock detects the potent scents of sulfur and potassium nitrate. 

“Should we not inform Captain Pike?” Spock asks.

“Nah, he was sloshed when I last saw him. Besides if he freaks out, we have our comms. Do you have your bike?” Jim asks.

“I do, but only one helmet,” Spock says in a tone that he hopes will convey that Jim will _not_ be allowed to ride on the back of his bicycle without one.

Jim rolls his eyes but otherwise doesn’t protest. 

“Hang on, I’ll be right back,” Jim tells him, walking back towards the house. “Number One rides a motorcycle and her helmet’s just inside. It’ll look dumb as fuck but hey, _que será, será_ , right Spock?” Jim asks, winking at him over his shoulder.

Jim comes back out of the house a few minutes later with his backpack on bearing a helmet that, despite Jim’s prognostication looks quite similar to a bicycle helmet.

“Okay,” Jim says, clambering onto the back of Spock’s bicycle. “Do you know where Bernal Heights is? It’s where I go on runs, and there’s a good view of the bay from up there.”

Spock answers in the affirmative. It is a large hill—a natural habitat preserve just outside the Mission district. 

“Okay, _vamos_ ,” Jim says, and Spock kicks off the sidewalk. As they pick up speed, the smoky air seems to wash away, so Spock pedals faster and Jim whoops, his voice joining the pyrotechnic shrieks, hisses or bangs that periodically crackle the already warm night air. 

19.8 minutes later they reach the hill.

Spock locks his bicycle to a streetside bike rack and under the darkening sky they proceed up a trail.

As they walk in silence, the memory of their final night—Jim's horrible nightmare, Spock attempting to calm him—surfaces in Spock's mind and he wonders if Jim is thinking of it too.

If he is though, he says nothing, and Spock is unversed in how to introduce such a topic.

When they reach the summit, there are several other groups gathered there, dispersed amongst the grass so Jim finds them a place to sit off to the side where there is a good view of San Fransisco’s bay, approximately 2.1 miles away.

“What time is it?” Jim asks Spock. “The fireworks are supposed to start at 9:30.”

“It is 9:14,” Spock replies, and Jim shoots him a grin and pulls out something from his backpack. He hands Spock a can of self-heating green tea, and cracks open the lid of a brown bottle with his shirt.

“Is that alcohol?” Spock asks.

Jim scowls at him.

“It definitely won’t be if you tell anyone.” 

“Jim, you are 17.”

Jim rolls his eyes. “I’ll be 18 in like, a month, which is practically 19, which is the legal drinking age for Federation humans,” Jim argues. “Besides, it’s not like this is _Sotol_ or something, it’s just beer, and it’s practically written into the Constitution that you’re supposed to drink beer on the 4th of July.” 

“Your logic is facetious,” Spock says.

“I know.” 

“Jim.”

“ _¡Por Dios!_ Fine! You nitpicking _fresa,_ ” Jim says, turning the beer bottle upside down and watching as its contents pour out as foam. “I hope you’re happy. Now I have to drink that in hell.” 

“Vulcans do not experience happiness.”

“Fine, be _un_ happy. Have it your way,” Jim says, throwing up his hands dramatically. 

“However, pouring libations in honor of a deity was a common custom on ancient Vulcan,” Spock continues reasonably.

“Well then that was a libation to the god of ‘ _I don’t give a fuck_ ,’” says Jim, to whom Spock’s reasonableness appears to be an irritant.

“Perhaps the god of fire would be more appropriate given the nature of tonight’s festivities.”

“Sucks to suck Spock, I already decided.”

“I do not think that the god you named is a legitimate deity,” Spock presses on. “On Vulcan _Ti'Valka'ain_ was considered to be the god both of fire and change, making him a much more appropriate candidate for your libation.”

Jim turns to look at Spock, and Spock can feel both his exasperation and sense of humor through his weakened shields.

“Is he your _favorite_ god Spock?”

“I do not have a favorite god.”

“I can tell when you’re lying Spock.”

“Vulcans do not lie.”

“I’ll re-dedicate the beer I’m going to have to drink in hell if you tell me,” Jim says wheedlingly. 

“I do not have a favorite god.”

Here Jim makes a sound with the low pitch and 500 Hz characteristic of disgust. “You’re literally the worst person I know. I don’t know why I even—” Jim breaks off.

“While it is true I do not have a favorite,” Spock says carefully into the resulting silence, “I have always…admired _Tel-alep_.”

At this Jim perks up slightly. “Who’s _Tel-alep_?” he asks, curious.

“His name means ‘the Watcher.’ His was the name given to the personification of _T’Khut_ , Vulcan’s sister planet, which fills up to 30% of Vulcans night sky. _T’Khut,_ alternately called _T’Rukh_ was viewed as the embodiment of curiosity and the desire for knowledge by ancient Vulcans—hence _Tel-alep’s_ attributes.”

“Okay cool, so he’s like the god of curiosity,” Jim says. “What does he do?”

“He does not _do_ anything in particular.”

“Come on,” Jim protests. “He must do _something_.” 

“He dies.”

“What the _fuck_?!” Jim exclaims, eyes flying open. “How can he be your favorite? What happens to him?”

“While the remaining documents are fragmentary, it was believed that he would be consumed by the final fire of _Ti'Valka'ain,_ along with all other things.”

“And that’s it? He just dies?”

“Yes.”

“You really are the worst person I know.”

“There is one story,” Spock concedes. The story is a rather illogical one, in Spock's estimation.

“ _Dios_ , there’d _better_ be.”

“In this story, he becomes romantically inclined towards—”

“He fell in love Spock. It’s not that hard to say.”

“As I was saying," Spock continues pointedly, "he became romantically inclined towards _Ulam_ , the Vulcan personification of imagination.” 

“Okay, okay, curiosity and imagination. I like that," Jim says, settling in and propping his chin on his hands. "What happens next?”

“ _Tyr-al-tep_ , the Vulcan god of guilt called ‘the Whisperer’ or ‘the Unforgiver,’ becomes envious. He tricks _Akraana_ , the goddess of war into shooting _Tel-alep_ with one of his poisoned arrows by blindfolding her and telling her she is aiming at a _stislak_ , a legendary creature of frightening appearance.”

“Wow, _Tyr-al-tep_ ’s a dick.”

“As you say. _Ulam_ , seeing what was occurring, took the arrow in place of _Tel-alep_. As _Ulam_ was dying, _Tel-alep_ pled with _Reah_ , the goddess of death for _Ulam_ ’s life. Seeing his great sorrow, _Reah_ agreed to release _Ulam_ from death in exchange for his most precious possession.”

“Shit.” Jim says. “What was it?”

“ _Tel-alep_ did not know either. He gave Death everything he knew, all his knowledge and all he had learned, but it was not enough.”

“Wait, how do you give someone _knowledge_?” Jim interrupts. “Like did he take out his memories or something?”  

“ _I_ do not know,” Spock responds, nettled. “The entire story is about fictional beings and based on an illogical premise.”

“Alright, _Dios,_ fine. Then what happened?” Spock gives him a narrow look.

“I won’t interrupt again.” 

“Very well. At last  _Tel-alep_ picked out his own eyes and laid them at Death’s feet. Seeing this, Death was satisfied with his sacrifice and so accepted the exchange, allowing _Ulam_ to live again in the body of a moon. When it was done however, _Tel-alep_ departed in sorrow for, blinded he was no longer the Watcher, and without knowledge he believed _Ulam_ could no longer desire him. _Ulam_ , however, followed him and,” here Spock pauses, finding the next words difficult to say.

“Yes?”

“ _..._ and reassured  _Tel-alep_ of his _affection_ ,” Spock manages. “And together they joined their _katra’s_ , becoming the first _telsu_ , the first bonded. In this way _Ulam_ became the moon of _T’Khut_ and _Tel-alep_ regained his sight through _Ulam’_ s eyes when their orbits were in alignment, as they followed one another through the sky. This is why _T’Khut’s_ moon is called _T'Rukhemai_ which means ‘the Eye of the Watcher,’” Spock finishes.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/40494188373/in/dateposted-public/)

“My libation definitely goes to them,” Jim says after 20.3 seconds of silence. “That was beautiful.”

“It is merely a fable meant to explain the origin of _kash-nohv_ , the mind meld, and the existence of _T’Khut’s_ moon to Vulcan children before the time of Surak,” Spock says. Jim looks up at him thoughtfully.

“I don’t think you believe that. I can see why he’s your favorite.” 

“He is not my favorite, and it is an illogical story,” Spock says, but Jim just laughs and bumps him with his shoulder.

“ _Puedes decir lo que quieres con tu boca, pero tu alma dice algo diferente_ ,” Jim tells him.

“What did you just say?”

“I said ‘you can say what you want with your mouth, but your soul is saying something different.’”

Spock is about to protest but just then the first giant firework cracks into the indigo sky.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/46736943454/in/dateposted-public/)

“Shit!” Jim exclaims, as the fireworks go off one after the next, some climbing hundreds of feet before bursting into showers of light that hang in the air momentarily before fading.

They watch for almost an hour (54.62 minutes) before Spock starts shivering and Jim decides it’s time to leave.

Spock offers to drop Jim off at Pike’s house but Jim dismisses this idea.

“There’s just going to be a lot of drunk adults waving sparklers around. Let’s just go to your apartment. I have most of my stuff and Pike’s supposed to drop me off with you tomorrow anyway.”

Spock acquiesces and together they hike back down the curving hill path to Spock’s bicycle.

Spock turns on the safety lights which glow yellow in the blue night.

As they speed down the slanting darkness of the streets they hear laughter and music issuing from open doors, light splashing out across the sidewalks. Jim recognizes one of the songs and yells the lyrics as they pass by—" _Yo no soy marinero, soy capitán, soy capitán!_ ” and people in a doorway laugh and raise their glasses.

“What did you say?” Spock asks.

“I said I’m the captain,” Jim answers as they zip around a corner.

When they reach the apartment Spock puts the bicycle away while Jim sends Pike a comm message explaining where he is. It is already past 2300 hours, so Spock forgoes meditation despite his weakened shields in favor of sleep.

After changing into their pajamas and brushing their teeth, they unroll their bedrolls and lie down, the sounds of fireworks going off in the distance audible through the apartments walls.

Spock listens to the sound of Jim’s breath hushing into sleep and closes his eyes.

That night he dreams he is the moon.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/33584029848/in/dateposted-public/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> hasta luego=see you later  
> güero=white guy (not typically pejorative)  
> bien encarada=literally "good faced" but it essentially means hot/pretty  
> vamos=let's go  
> por Dios=(essentially) oh my God  
> yo no soy marinero, soy capitán=I'm not a sailor, I'm the captain!
> 
> The quote Spock's thinking about at the party is from the Illiad, Achilles mourning the death of Patroclus and says "—this alien earth I stride will hold me down at last."
> 
> Also, Edit: originally Jim started out as 16 in this story because I love found orphan/family vibes, but I changed my mind halfway through and decided to write him as 17 because while their age gap is AOS canon, 3 years matters so much more the younger someone is and this story isn't about anything underage and their relative ages shifted the dynamic a bit. Hope that makes sense :)


	7. She's totally not into you Jim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations at the end

He gets the call on Wednesday, at 0346 hours. He is in his lab, the surrounding darkness somehow amplifying the vibrations of his comm, making them sound unnaturally loud.

“Spock. You did it—I didn’t think you would, but you did it,” Pike says, his voice low and urgent.

“Your confidence is reassuring. What, precisely, did I do?”

“Wait you don’t know?” Pike’s voice lifting with what is either surprise or incredulity.

“The fact that I am asking suggests that I do not.”

“Shoot, I thought you’d know Spock—it’s Jim—” Pike says. 

***

Two nights before, Jim had sustained another nightmare. It had not been as potent as the first, but Spock had caught pieces of it: a giant human bird standing on his chest and pecking out his eyes, children going to sleep and never waking up, and the old man who never stopped following his victims.

In the dream, Spock was terrified, the logical part of his mind asleep and unable to reassure him that the figures weren’t real.  

Jim had woken looking pale and shaken, his terror so loud that it filled the room and Spock had felt Jim's thoughts  _convulse_  with helplessness when he shook off the disorientation of the dream world and realized where he was.

A telepathic pseudo-intuition told Spock not to say anything as Jim had opened the window and climbed out onto the balcony, closing it behind him and sitting down below the window ledge where Spock couldn’t see him, tension crackling in his wake.

After waiting fifteen minutes though, Spock (still shaken himself from the nightmare) had decided intervention was necessary and had opened the window and looked down.

Jim had been huddled below the ledge, looking cold and miserable. 

“What do you want?” Jim had asked, not looking up and Spock had silently passed him a blanket through the window. 

“Thanks,” Jim had said reluctantly, accepting the blanket.

Spock hadn’t closed the window though. Instead he’d continued to lean out of it, unsure of what to do but deciding that he would offer his presence until he was told to go away.

7.80 minutes later, Jim had moved slightly to the side and mumbled “You can sit if you like.”

Spock had retrieved his own blanket and climbed out of the window, sitting with his back to the siding next to Jim. The sky had still been dark, but Spock had known with his Vulcan-born ever-awareness of the sun, that its rise would occur in 33 minutes at 5:09.

After 4.31 minutes however, Spock had begun to feel the effects of the cold and after 5.72, he began to shiver despite his blanket.

Jim had looked over at him and rolled his eyes, scooting closer and arranging their blankets one on top of the other, effectively trapping their combined body heat. Spock had stopped shivering shortly there after.

"Is meditation like praying for you?" Jim had asked, breaking the silence with his odd question.

Spock had been silent, considering.

He thought of how meditation had indeed originated as a form of prayer when it had first been used by a Pre-Surakian religious sect. In that context its purpose had been to empty _shal_ —the self—as a way to be filled with the will of the divine in a practice called  _vaikaya_. Although it had been adapted as a form of emotional regulation after Surak’s reform, in Spock’s estimation, it did indeed retain similar qualities to prayer.

“From what I understand, it is,” he had said at last, thinking of how both practices invited calm, how both encouraged the adherent to recognize their own innate limitations and become willing to relinquish selfish desires in the service of a greater purpose. 

Jim hadn't responded and all had been silent except for the occasional, huge sounds of the automated street sweepers passing to and fro in the distance.

At 0509 hours the first rays of sun had begun to filter upwards, as Spock had known they would, hitting the undersides of drifting clouds at the horizon.

Jim had followed Spock’s gaze into the east. “I’m sorry about before,” Jim had said, looking at the soft glimmers of light, presumably apologizing for pulling Spock into his nightmare.

“Jim, I share the fault with you. My shields are not strong enough to prevent… overlap while I am unconscious.”

“Is there a way to make it so you don’t have to see?” Jim had asked quietly. 

“Not without performing a very deep form of mind meld. The experience would be what most would consider… invasive, for both of us.”

“What _is_ a mind meld?” Jim had asked and Spock raised an eyebrow.

“What it sounds like,” he had answered. Jim had looked at him, looking disgruntled before letting out a startled exhale that registered as a form of laughter.

“I deserved that. So, basically you’d be in my head, and you’d see…” Jim gestures vaguely to his own skull.

“Yes.”

“Ah. Better not then. I’d say I didn’t want to give you nightmares but—" here Jim had broken off, his face twisting in a half-smile half-grimace.

5.1 minutes had passed, in which time the sun’s rays reached further across the sky as the elevation angle of the sun approached 0°. 

“I know that Pike brought me here to get me to enlist.” Jim had said suddenly. “ _And_ I know that you’re supposed to help convince me,” Jim had said, glaring at Spock.

“Which by the way, you’re doing a crap job of if your lifestyle was supposed to be a temptation. But anyway, it was obvious when he visited, but I didn’t have anywhere else to go and he offered to help get me a job, so I said okay and decided that I wasn't going to join up out of spite.” Jim had glanced at Spock. “Illogical, I know. But you know what?" Jim had asked, smiling slightly, looking towards the horizon where the sun was gradually, but inexorably being revealed by the slow rotation of the Earth.

"I’ve changed my mind.”

***

“Shoot, I thought you’d know by now Spock—it’s Jim—” Pike says. “He’s decided to join Starfleet.”

“Yes, I was aware of his intention,” Spock says to Captain Pike over the phone. “I did not realize, however, that he would act so quickly.”

“Thanks for the advance warning,” Pike says sarcastically. “You know, he walked into my office out of the blue this afternoon—with all the paperwork filled out and said ‘ _I’m only doing this as a favor_.’”

“But I did not give you advance warning,” Spock says. “If that is what you wish in future you will need to be more specific.” 

Spock hears Pike’s sigh over the phone.

***

_**Part Two:** _

The rest of July passes with startling rapidity. In a week Jim is taking his entrance exams (“Engineering was okay, but I think I fucked up the rest,”) and two weeks after that he’s receiving his letter of acceptance (Pike saying “Jim, your aptitude tests are off the charts, so the good news is you’re getting a generous scholarship, but the bad news is that we’re going to have to have a serious talk about your diplomacy essay,”) and dorm and roommate assignment. 

“I vetted several possible candidates,” Pike is saying to Spock over comm. “Background checks, personal records—the whole kit and caboodle. Standard procedure, really, for any… sensitive applicant.”

“And was your search successful? What is the identity of your chosen candidate?” Spock asks.

“Dr. Leonard McCoy. He’s 28 and has been a practicing medicine for the last six years as a primary care physician—so lot’s of time spent with patients, not very glamorous you know, so those are the sort of doctors who do it because they care. He also has a daughter, and when I spoke to him over comm, he seemed trustworthy, if a bit…" here Pike's voice dips into something like humor, "...cantankerous.” 

Spock had, of course, known that personal interviews were  _not_ a standard part of pairing one roommate with another, even if one of them was, as Pike had said, a “sensitive applicant.” Spock, however, had chosen not to point out this discrepancy between Pike’s words and actions to the Captain. 

Ten days after that conversation, term had begun on the second week of August. Jim had been staying with Pike during the majority of the last weeks, only staying with Spock for a few days during a particularly busy spell of Pike’s preparations to ship out in September. During this time, Pike had, presumably, helped Jim move into his dorm room and acquire any necessary materials. Spock himself had been very busy in the week before term; making final alterations to his syllabus; responding to emails from students signed up, or wishing to sign up for his classes; submitting applications for the reservation of various labs and instruments for the use of his students during lab times; and arranging meetings with his TA’s.

If his apartment was quieter during this time than it had been when occupied by a short, irrepressible teenager, it was at least, spotlessly clean.

So it was that he did not see Jim again until midway through October, well into the first semester.

In September, Pike had embarked on the _Enterprise_ with a final “Keep an eye on him,” but Spock had been unsure of how to comply with this directive. Jim was not in any of his classes and Spock, although capable of computing the flight path of a projectile in space or the exact energy produced by a matter-antimatter collision in a warp core with ease, was entirely inept when it came to navigating the vagaries of interpersonal interaction.

And so he had merely monitored Jim's academic progress through the shared faculty software, feeling slightly guilty for not doing more.

Accordingly, on October the 24th, at 1500 hours, when Spock is sneaking a rare moment to bask in the last of the autumn sunlight in a corner of a deserted courtyard, he is surprised to hear a quiet set of footsteps approach, and then halt nearby. He is still more surprised, upon opening his eyes, to see Jim standing next to him. 

He is wearing his cadet uniform, his hair slightly longer and his stature 0.47 centimeters taller than he had been when Spock saw him last, but the dark, amused eyes when he looks at Spock could not be anyone else's.

“Vulcan is a desert planet isn’t it?” Jim asks, tilting his chin up to catch more sunlight.

Spock considers the question. It is, of course, by any scientific measurement. On Vulcan it only rains once every 3 to 7 years. When it does, a giant atmospheric river forms, slithering through Vulcan’s sky like a _k’karee_ desert snake, miles long and containing more water, gallon for gallon, than the seven largest rivers on Earth combined. Spock was born during one of these events, but had only seen a deluge twice in his life, once when he was six and again when he was thirteen. Both times he had been transfixed by the amount of water—watching from the safety of his home, through windows and using satellite imagery—enthralled by how it filled the Forge’s valley like a bowl and swept hugely onwards, carving new flood plains in the desert and temporarily giving rise to concentrations of foliage and animal life seldom seen on Vulcan.

“Most of the time,” Spock answers. Jim gives him a quizzical look but just smiles.

“Someday, _vato,_ you’ll explain to me what that means.”

“Perhaps,” Spock says.

“No, there’s no perhaps about it. Don’t argue with me about this. It’s just one of those things I know.”

“How?” Spock asks.

“How do you always know what time it is Spock?” Jim says, grinning and whacking him on the shoulder before marching away. “I don’t want to be late for cross-country practice—see you around Professor Spock!” 

And indeed he does see Spock again, much sooner than Spock was expecting. The next day, at 1607 hours when he is conducting office hours (almost never attended) Jim walks in (possibly irritated, judging by the tightness in his jaw) and sits down in the chair opposite him. He watches silently as Jim gets out a several pieces of the calcium-carbonate graph paper most commonly used by Starfleet cadets to complete their assignments.

“Can you help me with this?” Jim asks, pointing to a problem.

“I can,” Spock says, glancing at the problem. “However you would be better served by addressing such questions to your assigned professor.”

“That’s what I’ve been doing for the last two months, but…” here Jim looks down at his own lap before his eyes flick up to meet Spock’s defiantly. “There’s a lot I don’t know compared to the other kids, and the professor,“ here Jim pauses momentarily, his jaw tensing again, “he’s okay at teaching, but every time I ask a question he looks at me like I’m stupid, and I’m not stupid,” Jim says, his words becoming more vehement on this last utterance. “And I asked you questions all summer long, and you were a total _culo_ sometimes but you never made me feel like an idiot. Insane, annoyed as hell, like I wanted to punch you in the face, yes, but not an idiot.”

Spock, although somewhat confused by the ratio of insults to compliments in what was clearly a speech meant to win him over, agrees to help, and from that day on Jim shows up in his office two or three times a week, often with several questions about an assignment from one of his many classes (Jim is attempting to graduate in three years—“You never know when they’ll yank my scholarship, so I’m getting this done fast,”) but increasingly often, Spock has noted, just to sit and work in silence, sometimes for several hours together.

Sometimes Jim will say something that appears to be a non-sequitur (“Did you hear?—the new pope—she's the second black woman ever to be elected to the office!” or “You wouldn’t believe what my roommate said to me this morning…”), and Spock will respond with a comment or question that alternately makes Jim laugh or scowl. A full month and several conversation's with his mother pass before Spock realizes that what Jim is doing is known as ‘making conversation.’ 

Spock looks across the desk at Jim who, several hours into one of their office sessions, has just, after mentioning an upcoming cross-country race, asked if he had ever participated in sports on Vulcan. He remembers how his mother had said _“Sometimes you’re hard to get to know Spock,”_ and wonders if Jim is trying to get to know him—if that is, perhaps, what Jim has been doing all along.

“There are no organized sport teams on Vulcan in the way that they are understood on Earth. All Vulcans of able body are instructed in a martial art as a form of self defense—most commonly the _Suus Mahna_ , although there are many regional variations. Many continue this practice through adulthood,” Spock says stiltedly, unable to work out how to say something more personal. 

“And when you got to Earth?” Jim prompts.

“I continued practicing the _Suus Mahna_ , as you know,” Spock says, confused.

“No _Huevón_ , I meant did you ever think of doing any Terran sports? Like soccer or basketball—oh man, I bet you could dunk—“ Jim says, breaking into excited Spanish.

“I did not.”

“Why not?”

“It did not occur to me. Why do you run on the cross country team?” Spock asks, attempting to turn the conversation on Jim, despite his resolution to be more candid.

“Anyone who gets in trouble a lot as a kid is fast," Jim says, his mouth tilted up in a smirk and one eyebrow raised "Are _you_ fast Spock?”

Sometimes, Spock reflects, as he looks into the teasing, too-perceptive eyes across from him, conversations with Jim are less like conversations and more like skirmishes. 

“Affirmative,” Spock responds, as he often does, with the resigned truth, "I am a slightly faster runner than the reported average for my species."

“I knew it! You have that vibe—” Jim says, triumphant, “well, way, _way_ underneath all your other vibes," he reflects. "So, what did you do?” Jim asks conspiratorially.

“Do?” 

Jim rolls his eyes as though his meaning were obvious. “To get in trouble. Who did you have to run from?"

Spock does not sigh, but it is a near thing. _Maybe I liked being hard to get to know,_ Spock thinks, _if it meant avoiding such questions_. “Other Vulcan students at the learning institute I attended and at times from my mother when I was very young and wished to escape punishment.”

“Did she chase you?”

“Every time,” Spock says, remembering.

“And the other students, why were you running from them?” Jim asks, his expression shifting into something unreadable. Spock is silent for several moments, his mind filling with taunting words, expressionless faces and the anger-fear-sadness he had felt as a child that, to his horror, still makes his face heat up and his throat prickle.

“That can be another one of those things you tell me someday,” Jim says, breaking through Spock's thoughts. “Hey!” he says, voice suddenly shifting into it’s typical higher frequencies, the ones indicative of excitement. “We should totally race. I bet I could beat you.”

“As I am Vulcan, I am three times stronger than an average human, meaning that I am capable of approximately double your highest potential force production and stride rate. In addition to this, Vulcans evolved in a lower oxygen environment than humans, meaning I require less oxygen and therefore use less energy in an aerobic state. For these reasons it is very unlikely that you could ‘beat’” me in either a long or short distance race.”

“All I’m hearing is ‘Blah blah blah science, I don't have the _cojones_ to race an inferior human half my size,’” Jim says, smirking. “Why don’t we find out just how high your stride rate is,” Jim says, belying his previous assertion that he wasn’t listening, "when you lose."

Spock looks at Jim, and then down at himself, visually checking his attire for its suitability in a race—a useless gesture as they are both in uniform—and a give away that Jim has successfully goaded him. And sure enough, when he looks back up, Jim’s grin is self-satisfied in the knowledge that he will get his way.

At just past 1800 hours, Spock _has_ technically completed all the work he had assigned himself for the day, so he locks his office door and together they walk down the stairs and, and by tacit agreement, around the building towards the sidewalk that marks the place where the campus ends and the rest of the city begins.

When they arrive, the street is uninhabited in the growing dark of the early-setting autumn sun. 

“Okay,” Jim says, his voice and manner changing from amused to pragmatic in a moment. “We’ll race from my backpack,” Jim says, setting his backpack down on the grass easement, “to the end of that building where those trash cans are,” Jim says pointing at a building 20 yards away, “and back. Whoever touches this sign pole first," Jim says, touching the post, "wins."

"And the loser has to buy the other one ice cream,” he adds quickly, moving towards the starting line. Before Spock has even agreed to these parameters Jim is already running as he yells “Onetwothreego!” and Spock’s body is (for once) reacting before his mind and he’s chasing as fast as he can. 

He comes level with Jim, (who has a sizable head start), just before the building, but Jim is quicker on the turn and so Spock has to catch up again, but Jim maneuvers to block his way to the pole, and so Spock has to try to dart around him.

In the end, their hands touch the sign post within milliseconds of one another.

“I won!” Jim crows in between gasps, tucking a crucifix back under his shirt.

“You did not,” Spock says, smoothing his hair into place. “And you cheated.”

“I did not!” Jim says, looking at him with wide, innocent eyes. “I just chose parameters that made it more likely that I would win.”

“That is merely a re-definition of cheating. And You did not win,” Spock replies with a certain degree of vim. “To the best of my knowledge it was a tie.”

“Hmmm. Sounds like you’re a sore loser to me,” Jim says before switching into gloating Spanish.

“I did _not_ lose. And you have admitted that you unfairly manipulated the parameters of engagement.”

“All I hear when you talk is the sound of free ice cream and jealousy,” Jim says, looking up at Spock, his face shifting into a half-serious expression. “Never let someone else make the rules,  _Güero_. You had all the advantages and I still won." Then Jim grins. "Man, I'm going to tell my grandchildren about this. I beat a Vulcan in a strength contest.”

“You did _not_ ,” Spock says, walking towards the awning where he stored his bicycle, sounding petulant even to his own ears. 

“What was that? Free ice cream you said?” 

“I did not agree to that aspect of the competition.”

“Spock if you back out of the deal, our friendship is over.” 

Jim’s words bring Spock up short. He looks at Jim, who has his hands on his hips, the contrast of his scowling mouth and laughing eyes caught by the last rays of sunlight. “What did you say?” Spock asks.

“I said, ‘if you back out, I'm not going to be your friend any more.’ Why do you look so shocked? Ice cream and honor are very important to me.” 

Spock just blinks and turns back to where he is trying to unlock his bicycle via thumbprint recognition. His heart stutters oddly in his side and he blinks several more times.

“When do you demand this ice cream?” Spock asks slowly.

Jim’s eyes widen fractionally. “Now,” he responds without hesitation.

“Why?”

“Because today’s going to be like, the last warm day before it starts raining constantly,” Jim says, before pausing thoughtfully and adding on “ _And_ so you don’t have time to slither out.” 

“I do not have a second helmet and Vulcans do not slither.”

“Oh yes they do. And don't worry, we can walk. There’s a place like three blocks away,” Jim says, not waiting for Spock to agree and striding away across the grass.

"Vulcans do not worry," Spock says, resignedly wheeling his bicycle after Jim.

The dusk, as Jim had claimed, is still warm, despite the light breeze that pushed at Spock’s bangs and when they arrive at there destination there is a short line.

“Have you ever had ice cream before?” Jim asks as they get in line. “No, wait don’t answer that. I don’t want to know how sad your life was before I started helping you.”

“I do not see how you are helping me as _I_ am the one supplying the credits."

Jim gives him a look. "There are some problems that you can't solve by throwing money at them Spock," he says sagely. "Universal peace, the secret to great hair, and eating ice cream are all on that list. Eating ice cream is an essential part of life."

"It cannot be essential by definition as I have never imbibed it before.”

“Agh!” Jim groans, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I told you not to tell me. Now I have to think about all those sad, ice creamless years, wasted on edamame and scobies.”

When they get to the front of the line, Jim tries to choose Spock’s flavor for him with a sly persistence that suggests he is aware of the intoxicating effects of chocolate on Vulcans. Spock deftly avoids these attempts and instead gets _kaasa_ sorbet, which he was surprised to see was an option. 

“Never had ice cream before and he gets _sorbet_ ,” Jim complains. “I guess  _kaasa_  is a Vulcan fruit?”

“Yes,” Spock answers, tasting the sorbet, which is startlingly good.

“See!” Jim proclaims, his voice raising slightly. “It’s not all Vulcans who have never had ice cream before—it’s just you who’s too, too—” Jim pauses, clearly struggling to find an appropriate adjective. “Too _huevónish_ ,” he gets out disgustedly. “Why else would they have a _Vulcan_ flavored thing if not for _Vulcans_?” he says as though delivering a mathematical proof, gesturing grandly with his ice cream cone and almost loosing it in the process.

Once he has assured the safety of his ice cream, Jim sits down on the curb of a large bioswale. Spock sits next to him, and their feet hang over the ledge, just touching the tops of the sturdy wetland vegetation planted inside. 

“Oh fuck, I’m getting a brain freeze,” Jim groans after several minutes (5.76). “What have I done?”

“Brain freeze?”

“You know, when you eat something cold too fast and you get a headache,” Jim says, looking sideways at him from where he’s holding his head in his hands.

“Ah, yes,” Spock says as he begins to feel an increased blood flow through his anterior cerebral artery and an increased pressure in his frontal and superior medial pariental lobes. _My old enemy, vasodilation,_ he thinks. “I believe I am experiencing a similar state of _sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia_.”

“I don't know what that means, but I think I’m going to die Spock,” Jim moans, lying down on the pavement. “Tell Bones he can have my body for science.” 

Spock ignores Jim and focuses on raising his intracranial temperature, exhaling slightly as he feels the pressure lessen as his blood vessels contract.

Just then, Cadets Uhura, Chapel and several others whom Spock doesn’t recognize round a corner. 

“Jim!” Cadet Uhura calls out, looking between them. “And Professor Spock,” she says, holding up a _ta'al_. “What are you doing?” she asks curiously, looking at Jim who is still lying against the pavement.

At this, Jim pushes himself up from the sidewalk, all traces of pain vanishing instantly a smile. “Well I _was_ dying of a brain freeze,” Jim says before switching into Spanish. Spock only catches the word “ _angel,_ ” a word which, although pronounced differently than it’s Standard counterpart, is unmistakable.

Uhura laughs, responding in Spanish and putting an arm around Dr. Chapel's waist.

“She’s totally into me,” Jim says to Spock in an audible whisper, causing Dr. Chapel, who had already been grinning to burst out into laughter. Uhura corrals Jim in a loose headlock and both she and Chapel rub the knuckles of their fists into his scalp in what appears to be a strange human ritual. Jim protests and squirms but, Spock notes, makes no effort to break free. It is a mild shock to witness Jim being so relaxed among other people. Spock realizes he had grown used to being the only one around whom Jim did not tense.

“Come back when you can bench press more than I can,” Uhura says.

“Oh come on,” Jim says, “don’t perpetuate toxic masculinity—I think it’s _exitante_ that both of you could bench press me. And besides,” Jim smirks, "I shouldn't say this in front of Spock, but I just beat a Vulcan in a race."

"Oh yeah?" Uhura asks raising an eyebrow, and shooting a grin at Spock, "Was he even aware he was participating?"

"Do I look like someone who would lie?" Jim asks, his expression one of exaggerated innocence.

"Definitely," she says, winking at Spock. Both women ruffle Jim's hair once more (producing more protests) before proceeding to join their group in the line now leading out and all the way around the ice cream store, Uhura looking at Spock and saying “All yours Professor.”

Next to him, Jim smooths down his hair. “Like I said, she's totally into me," Jim tells him confidently, to which Spock can think of no reply that would not be perceived as cruel or entirely dishonest. 

"I can’t wait till I’m taller. Everyone always ruffles your hair when your short. Do you think I’m getting taller?” Jim asks as they walk over to the rack where Spock had secured his bicycle.

“You have grown 4.7 centimeters since our first meeting.”

“Yes!!” Jim says doing a fist pump. “I knew it! Bones said it was just my imagination, the _cabrón_.”

Spock unlocks his bicycle and helmet, securing the latter under his chin. “Who is ‘Bones?’” he asks.

“You’re welcome for the ice cream Professor,” Jim replies, smirking instead of answering, as Spock swings a leg over his bike.

“I do not believe that works how you think it works,” Spock says, raising an eyebrow and pushing off the sidewalk, speeding away to the sound of Jim’s amused laughter.

That night, as he's brushing his teeth, he realizes that, somewhere in between Jim’s teasing and their absurd race, he’d forgotten all about his Vulcan classmates. 

He also reflects, as he’s falling asleep, that today was the first time in his life that he spent time with a friend. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations: Pardon Jim's French, eh, Spanish (could not resist this dad joke)  
> culo=asshole  
> cojones=balls  
> exitante=arousing  
> cabrón=literally it means "stubborn goat" but it basically means asshole.
> 
> Kudos to anyone who caught the "Hamilton" reference:  
> HAMILTON: ...I may have punched him. It’s a blur, sir. He handles the financials?  
> BURR: You punched the bursar.  
> HAMILTON: Yes! I wanted to do what you did. Graduate in two, then join the revolution. He looked at me like I was stupid, I’m not stupid.


	8. What are your intentions with my daughter?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings/spoilers in end notes  
> Translations at the end
> 
> Thank you so much to the fantastic summerofspock who's help beta'ing this chapter was invaluable. If you haven't already, check out their current story “[The Kepler Omicron Party](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17372276/chapters/40881293)” if you like survival narratives, and your K/S done with suspense and good writing.

It is on a cold day, a week and a half later that he discovers who ‘Bones’ is. It is a Saturday and Spock is standing at the end of an open air course marked with tape, in a crowd of approximately forty other beings.

The reason for Spock's being here—despite the unfavorably cold weather—is, a week and a half before, on the day they had eaten ice cream, Jim had mentioned his upcoming cross country race. And, in his new capacity as friend, Spock had, the next time Jim had come to study in his office, asked for specifics about the time and place.

“Are you asking because you want to come?” Jim had asked with suspicious incredulity.

“Is it not a human tradition to attend the sporting events of one’s associates?” Spock—who had put this very question to his mother the day before (“Spock that’s a wonderful idea!”)—had asked.

Jim had given him a narrow, assessing look before breaking into a grin and informing him of the details.

So it is that Spock stands, trying not to shiver in the cold of the 50°F morning, watching as figures clad in Starfleet-red dash through the trees on a 10 kilometer course alongside the purple and green uniforms of two rival colleges. 

An interruption occurs when, in his peripheral vision, Spock sees a man next to him giving him an odd look.

When Spock meets his gaze, the man looks away quickly, but then, much to Spock’s surprise, the man turns to him and asks abruptly “Are you Spock?”

Unsure of who this person is, Spock extends his telepathy enough to know that the man has no violent intentions before replying “That is correct. And you are?”

“I’m McCoy. Dr. Leonard McCoy,” he says, moving to offer a handshake and then just as quickly turning the motion into a crude approximation of a _ta'al_. “I’m Jim’s roommate,” he says jabbing over his shoulder with his thumb at the course.

“I see,” Spock says, recalling his conversation with Captain Pike. “Cadet Kirk has mentioned you on multiple occasions,” Spock says, not mentioning that Jim simply referred to him as “my roommate.”

“Back atcha,” Dr. McCoy says, and Spock begins to wonder if this individual has full command over the Standard language. “I don’t know why you put up with the kid myself— _I_ sure as heck wouldn’t if it wasn’t by force.”

Just then the first figures break out of the trees, and in the next few minutes, by his every single action, McCoy diametrically contradicts his previous sentiment.

First, Dr. McCoy produces a large sign, seemingly from nowhere that reads simply “JIM,” and then begins shouting encouragements and threats at Jim, who is likely too far away to hear, as he chases the lead group of six runners. Among the tall, long-legged athletes, Jim is almost comically small, but somehow, he manages to get fifth, overtaking one of the six leaders in the final stretch.

As soon as Jim crosses the finish line, McCoy is breaking the implicit barrier of the tape line and grabbing Jim in a hug and spinning him around. _Poor impulse control,_ Spock thinks.

“ _Dios_ , let go of me you loser. I didn’t even place, you’re embarrassing yourself,” Jim says, into the Doctor’s shoulder, his voice slightly hoarse with exertion.

McCoy sets Jim down and produces a medical tricorder, again seemingly from nowhere and begins taking readings.

“How are you feeling? Any cramping? Nausea? Shooting pains?”

“Leave me alone Bones,” Jim intones, trying to use gravity to escape from McCoy’s grasp. _Bones_ , Spock thinks, glad to have this mystery solved, reflecting that the appellation is no more illogical than ‘ _Huevo_.’

“Okay, what do I always say?” McCoy says, pushing a bottle of water into Jim’s hands, “Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.”

“Hydrate or diedrate,” Jim echoes in a quiet groan, sinking to the ground. Just then, Jim catches sight of Spock from behind McCoy, and goes a blotchy red.

“Just let me die here,” he says softly to McCoy.

“Jesus kid, don’t be so dramatic, you’re not going to die,” he says, crouching by Jim’s prone body and throwing a look at Spock as he approaches.

“I didn’t think you’d actually come,” Jim says from where he’s lying on the grass, his legs covered in mud and his face split in a wide grin as he looks up at Spock. McCoy continues to grouse for several more minutes, during which time Jim makes various faces expressive of amusement and annoyance at Spock from behind McCoy’s back.

“Do you want a ride?” McCoy asks Spock as he pulls Jim up and shunts him towards an old model hovercar parked on the curb. Spock considers this for a moment. He has his bicycle and McCoy is plainly capricious, but the air is an uncomfortably cold 58°F and rain is in the forecast.

“I would, thank you,” Spock says. “My bicycle is collapsable and will fit in your luggage compartment if you are amenable.” McCoy nods and they proceed towards the vehicle.

They have barely taken their places within the car (Spock in the passenger seat and Jim sprawled in the back) before a heavy rain begins to fall and Spock takes a moment to be grateful for his continued dryness. At McCoy’s prompting, Spock inputs his address into the navigation console and the hovercar sputters to life.

“Bones you’ve really got to get that engine looked at,” Jim says nonchalantly from the backseat.

“You don’t think I know that?!” McCoy exclaims volubly. _This man is clearly a highly emotionally unstable individual_ , Spock thinks. “Besides, isn’t that what _you’re_ supposed to be good at?” Here the doctor, pauses, almost choking on his own indignation.

“Damnit Jim, I’m a doctor, not a car mechanic!” Jim and McCoy say together. Jim bursts out laughing and McCoy scowls.

“Just see if you’re laughing when you don’t have a ride,” the Doctor mutters. The car is silent for a few minutes save for the incessant pattering of rain on the windshield until McCoy speaks up.

“So Spock,” the Doctor asks in a voice laden with a tension that Spock cannot discern the meaning of, “I heard that you and Jim went out the other day, and I’d like to ask—what would you say are your intentions toward—”

“Oh my God,” Jim groans from the backseat. “You’re not my dad, Bones. You do not get to do this here.”

“I’m just asking,” McCoy says, his voice going up in placation. “I just want to know why—”

“No,” Jim says, his voice tense. “Stop now. Chapel is a gossip and you’re _not_ allowed to do this in my presence,” Jim says, glaring fiercely at Dr. McCoy. “ _Or_ out of my presence, but I know I can’t stop you, you _chismoso_ old man.”

“Fine, fine,” McCoy says, waving a hand in a casual gesture.

Spock, on whom this interaction was entirely lost, opens his mouth to ask a question. Jim, either seeing this in the rearview mirror or simply anticipating his reaction says, “Nope, Spock. I’m not going to explain this one,” while glaring at McCoy, and Spock closes his mouth again.

The rest of the car ride passes with angry looks and silence from Jim and an unflagging expression of righteous innocence from Dr. McCoy.

When they reach Spock’s apartment, Jim clambers out to help Spock with his bicycle.

“Sorry about that,” Jim says, jabbing at the hovercar with his thumb.

“There is no offense where none is taken,” Spock says carefully, still unsure of how he was supposedly offended.

Jim says something in frustrated Spanish before climbing into the front seat. “See you Professor Spock,” he says, holding up a _ta’al_ , “live long and party.”

“That is not—” Spock begins as Jim’s door shuts, the audible sounds of Jim and McCoy arguing fading into nothing as the hovercar pulls away.

“…how the saying goes,” Spock tells the empty street.

As the street does not reply, Spock goes into his apartment building, wondering what had just happened.

***

“Do you celebrate Christmas?” Jim asks on a Thursday afternoon in December, seated in what has become his chair in Spock’s office.

Jim’s question, quotidian though it is, is a reminder of how many gaps there are in their knowledge of one another.

While Spock knows many of Jim’s habits and preferences, the circumstances of his birth (as described by Starfleet reports), that he has nightmares about the massacre on Tarsus IV, that he is Catholic, and that he has a grandmother—there remain many salient facts about his life that Spock is unaware of.

Where Jim’s mother is; where he grew up; who taught him Spanish and basic engineering; why he was sent to Tarsus IV and what he saw there, are all mysteries.

Over the months, Spock has gleaned one or two relevant pieces of information, for instance that Jim spent some of his childhood in Iowa, and that an unknown event had occurred involving a car that terminated his stay there.

“If it hadn’t been for that _chingada_ Chevy Corvette, we totally would have made it to regionals,  _palabra de honor_.” Jim had said once when explaining to Spock that he had been a part of the local high school’s chess team—a sally in Jim’s latest campaign to convince Spock to join the Academy chess club (“Seriously, with your giant brain, mark my words Spock, you would _kill_.” “Vulcans are pacifists, and furthermore chess does not involve physical violence.” “Not what I meant Spock.”).

“I do not,” Spock answers finally without looking up from his PADD where he is working on grading assignments.

“Why not?”

“Vulcans do not celebrate Terran holidays.”

“So?”

“So I do not celebrate it,” Spock says, finally looking up from his PADD in annoyance. “In addition, my mother is Jewish.”

“So do you celebrate Hanukkah?” Jim asks, undeterred.

Spock gives him a sharp look and Jim merely blinks innocently at him.

“I do not, however my mother did possess a menorah which she utilized during the holiday.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Jim says, grinning. “What else? Did you guys play dreidel games or say blessings?”

“To what do these questions tend?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Jim says, holding up his hands in a placating gesture.

Spock, who knows now not to take Jim’s words at face value gives him another look, this time with a raised eyebrow, and watches as a slow grin creeps slowly across Jim’s face.

“Well, if you _must_ know—”

“You wanted me to ask.” Spock says, more accusation than question.

Jim scowls. “Don’t be such an _aguafiestas Huevo_ ,” here he huffs slightly. “As I was saying, if you’ve just _got_ to know,” Jim says, recovering his smirk, “Bones and I, and Uhura and Chapel and a couple other kids were planning on having a Christmas party—you know, to celebrate the end of term before everyone goes home.”

“And why are you informing me of this?” Spock asks.

“Because you’re invited, obviously,” Jim says, rolling his eyes. “Well, if you come, it can be a Chanumas party.”

“And where will you be holding this event?”

“Well that’s the thing…” Jim says, his expression becoming sheepish, and Spock knows he has discovered the catch. “All of us live the dorms except for Chapel because of that dumb rule about living on campus until your third year, but she shares her apartment with like, _twelve_ other people so there’s no room and I was wondering if—“

“No.”

“You haven’t even heard what I was going to say!”

“You were going to ask if you could host your gathering in my apartment and the answer is no,” Spock says calmly.

“But you’d be invited,” Jim says sullenly.

“You cannot invite me to my own place of dwelling.”

“But—”

“No matter what arguments you have prepared.”

“ _Aguafiestas fresa_ ,” Jim mutters under his breath, and Spock, having made his position clear, believes the matter will end here.

So it is that he is taken by surprise, when, the following Wednesday, Dr. Chapel, as she passes him on route to class calls out “See you at the party Spock!” waving at him and smiling brightly.

Before he has time to reply, she is already too far away for him to respond without raising his voice. Somewhat confused, he proceeds to class. The incident was odd, but likely (with a probability of 79%) an accident.

The following day, however the same thing occurs, only this time it is Cadet Uhura who calls out to him. After pondering the matter, however, he again concludes that it was possibly an accident (with a probability of 43%).

It is only when, at 1300 hours he is in the canteen (having forgotten his lunch), and a man with a Scottish accent whom he does not know calls out “Spock! Excited to see ya at the Yule Tide! I’ll be bringing clootie’s!” does he becomes truly unnerved. He hurries between buildings, glancing at every passing student and hoping that they too have not been invited to his home.

He waits for Jim in his office that day, prepared for a confrontation, but Jim never arrives.

When he receives his pre-arranged call from his mother and the first thing she says is “Spock! I heard that you’re going to a holiday party!” he becomes resigned.

“Yes Mother,” he says, sealing his defeat. “May I ask how you were informed of this?”

“Oh, Jim called me! He was very polite—he said he wanted to know if we had any important Chanukah traditions that he should know about.”

“I am sure he did,” Spock says, resisting the urge to massage his temples. “And what did you tell him?”

“Well let’s see, I had him write down our family latke recipe—you know the one I tired to make that one time? And I told him about how you love the dreidel song, you know, [S’vivon sov sov sov](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM7fUnqWjsA)? And about the year you ate all the dreidel raisins before the game started—“

“Mother, I was four.”

“—so we had to play with pebbles, and when I asked you if you’d eaten them you tried to convince me it was a logical thing to do—”

“Mother, is there anything you did not tell him?”

“I’m just kidding Spock. I didn’t tell him about the raisins.”

“I am gratified,” Spock says.

“I _did_ tell him about the time we played with jelly beans,” she says with a grin.

It will not be till many years later that Spock will begin to suspect that his mother had been in on Jim’s plan the entire time. When this notion occurs to him, in his bed, late at night after an arduous day, he will feel both betrayed and, despite himself, grateful.

The following day, when Jim shows up in his office, neither of them mention the upcoming party as they work quietly across from one another. At 1800 hours, Jim puts away his PADD and nods goodbye to Spock, leaving through his office door. He has been gone for less than five seconds before his face appears once again in the doorframe.

“You’re officially invited to your house next Friday at 6:30!” he says, winking and dashing away down the corridor.

 

***

  
_Human culture is very strange,_ he thinks as he watches Jim hang homemade blue and white stars from his ceiling.

In his mind he keeps a list of humankind’s most preposterous displays of illogic: “I am the God of Hellfire,” Stendhal syndrome, Ig Nobel awards, "Bohemian Rhapsody," “cellar door,” preformatism, Plato’s _Origin of Love_ , “Deny me and be doomed,” the “I am rich” app, reduplicates, _l'appel du vide_ , helter skelter, _Radha Krishna_ and _Rangwali Holi_ —कृष्ण एन्चन्त्स थे वोर्ल्द बुत् र्हद एन्चन्त्स एवेन हिं, demons from earwax, the appendix, the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog, mac n’cheetos, _“…and I saw visions of God. I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north—…and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was human, but each of them had four faces and four wings,” “take off your shoes for the place on which you walk is holy ground,” etcetera ad nauseam_.

He has decided to add Jim’s version of “Chanumas” to the list.

Today being the last day of testing before the end of term, Jim had arrived at his home straight from a command-track engineering final, beaming and apron-clad at 1:00 in the afternoon. He had gone straight to Spock’s kitchen, where he had begun a process of grating, chopping, soaking and mixing, relaying orders like an army general and not stopping until he had paused to help Spock hang decorations.

“You know, I can practically hear you thinking the word “illogical.’” Jim had said. “This means I won’t be telling you about “Chanukwansmasolstadan.” Spock had decided that, in this case, it was in his best interest not to know.

“What are you making?” Spock asks a few moments later.

Jim counts off on his fingers, “I’m making latkes and tamales, plus all the salsas, Scotty—he’s the lab instructor for my engineering class—is making clooties, but honestly we’re all too afraid to try them, so Sulu—he’s a guy from the cross country team—is bringing a back-up dessert, Bones is making salad, of course, and Chapel, Nyota and this girl Marlena that Chapel and I know from chess club are bringing the alcohol,” he finishes.

“Jim,” Spock says, admonishingly.

“Spock,” Jim responds, his voice defiant.

_“Jim.”_

“Fine!” Jim says, rolling his eyes. “I won’t drink without your permission—are you happy?”

“No,” Spock says, quirking an eyebrow.

Jim looks like he is about to fly into a rage when just then, the buzzer goes off. Jim answers it, and the irascible sound of Dr. McCoy’s voice filters up through the wires. Jim buzzes him in, and 35.1 seconds later, McCoy is pushing his way through the door.

“Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah,” the Doctor says, brushing past them both on his way to the kitchen where he begins muttering under his breath as he chops up cabbage and jicama.

Jim, apparently having forgotten his anger, shoots Spock an amused look before following McCoy into the kitchen.

“I know how much you love holiday music Bones,” Jim says turning the dial on the radio, “so we saved this just for you,” he says, smirking as Christmas music begins to play.

“Oh God,” McCoy groans. “When are Chapel and Uhura going to get here? I can’t do this sober.”

“ _Aguafiestas_ ,” Jim says cheerfully, turning up the volume ever so slightly.

Sulu (a cadet he recalls from one of his introductory classes) and “Scotty” (Spock recognizes him as the man with the Scottish accent) arrive next, shortly followed by Dr. Chapel, Cadet Uhura and a female cadet who is introduced to him as Marlena Moreau. All three women make their way into the now crowded kitchen and begin assembling a wide assortment of brightly colored beverages.

Spock is beginning to feel slightly overwhelmed. He had spent several hours the previous day cleaning his apartment repeatedly, and so many people in it—all of whom likely have social expectations of him as a host, and whose collective mental presence is only escalating with time—is beginning to fray his nerves.

His panic is spreading like an itch when suddenly, Jim is by his side saying “Would you mind taking this out the compost Spock? My hands are full,” handing Spock a compost bin, now filled with vegetable peels, eggshells and other organic detritus. Spock nods quickly and makes his escape.

Outside the air is cold and brisk as Spock walks mechanically to the apartment building’s joint compost receptacle. He breathes out, watching as only the faintest condensation appears, momentarily suspended in the air (he has often noted that human breath is much more visible than his own in the cold—a product of their inferior water retention capabilities).

That, he recognizes, is precisely the problem. He is too good at all the wrong things. When he had first journeyed to Earth he had feverishly prepared for human conversation by memorizing Earth's geography, topography, mineral composition and the speed at which it traveled through space around the sun, worried that he would have nothing to talk about. In his attempt to prepare for human interaction, he had studied the human bodily systems, read countless papers of neuroscience, and committed to memory the eras of Earth’s geologic time scale and the significant events of the Athropocene epoch.

All of these things, had, as anyone could have told him if he’d asked, been utterly useless. Small talk escaped him, human expressions of emotion confused and embarrassed him and he had quickly discovered that he was as ill-equipped at making connections with his human peers as he had been with his Vulcan ones.

Once he had made this realization, something had shut inside of him. He’d taken Starfleet’s entrance exams, tested out of the first two years of coursework and graduated in two more at the top of his class. He’d become a professor at just 20, published several papers and was, he knew, slated to become a lieutenant aboard Starfleet’s flagship, the _Enterprise_ when it returned to Earth in June.

He had simultaneously achieved both everything he had set out to when he had rejected a place at the Vulcan Science Academy, and none of it at all.

It is ironic how like a Vulcan he has performed here, excelling in all his classes and making no friends. From where they sit in the back of his mind, he hears the panel murmuring that he is right, that it would have been better to be a half-breed obscenity at their Academy than to come here, only to discover that he was a misfit on Earth as well.

He begins to walk away from his apartment, the towering buildings surrounding him like standing stones, huge trilithons, dolmens, and sarsens, blue-purple in the dark.

His heart clenches in his side and the damp air works its way into his lungs, dogging him like a miasma and making his breath short.

 _All the wrong things_ , he thinks as his heart seizes. _This alien earth you stride will hold you down at last. Neither human nor Vulcan, there is no place in this world for you. No place in any world._

He hears the sound of a door opening and shutting behind him, but doesn’t turn around.

“Spock.”

Spock looks at Jim's face unseeing, his mind still whirling. _Alien earth...no place in this world for you...in any world._

“Hey, Spock. _Huevón_ ,” Jim says, gripping his arm.

Spock glances at Jim’s hand, and thinks about how easy it would be to _break_ his hold.

“Spock, look at me,” Jim says, his hand coming up to grip Spock’s chin, turning his face to look at him. Spock meets his eyes and they are bright in the oblique light of a street lamp.

“Breathe with me, okay? Let’s go to one of your meditative places. Breathe in and out,” Jim says, moving his hand to the side of Spock’s face and his thumb gently skittering along the underside of his jaw as he inhales and exhales slowly.

“Good, like that,” he says as Spock obeys. The air in his lungs feels too thick—as though it were composed of heavier elements than nitrogen and oxygen—and it drags through his respiratory tract, almost painful for the first breaths. Finally, on the seventh exhale, he finds he is able to speak.

“I don’t belong here,” Spock gets out, vaguely surprised by how his hoarse his voice is. The price of the admission is a growing pain in Spock’s chest that he feels certain will swallow him, like being in Jim’s nightmare, attacked by one of his monsters.

“Yes you do. You belong just as much as I do,” Jim says, looking into his eyes, his voice full of the confidence of command. “When I freak out I go through the rosary in my head or recite St. Francis’ prayer. Is there anything like that for Vulcans?”

Spock shakes his head, his thoughts still loud as klaxons in his head, and Jim keeps talking in his low, confident voice. “That’s alright. I’ll teach you _la Oración por la Paz_ , the Prayer for Peace. It goes like this,” Jim says, and the world narrows just to his voice, to its practiced, almost melody.

“Make me an instrument of peace. Where there is hatred let me sow love, where there is injury, pardon, where there is doubt, faith, where there is despair, hope, where there is darkness, light, and where there is sadness, joy,” Jim says, each word falling over Spock like a benediction, a metronome slowing the rhythm of his thoughts. Jim takes a breath before finishing.

“Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive it is in pardoning that we are pardoned. And it's in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen,” Jim says, taking his hand away from Spock’s face before crossing himself and then Spock.

“There you go,” Jim says, letting go of Spock’s arm. “Now you’re blessed,” his mouth quirking up into a smile. Spock becomes aware of his hands, fisted against his thighs, and he releases them.

“How are you doing?” Jim asks after a moment, reaching up to straighten Spock's collar.

“I am adequate,” Spock says. And he is. He feels raw, but Jim’s words and presence have calmed him somewhat.

“Good,” Jim says, bumping the top of his head lightly against Spock’s shoulder. “Do you want to go somewhere or meditate? Oh, and just so you know, I told everyone I had to step out for a comm call, so no no one will be any the wiser if we decide to go back.”

Spock feels a wave of relief pass over him. “It is unethical and illogical to lie,” is what he says.

Jim grins, although there is trace of sadness in the expression. “Well I’m both those things. Do you want to go back in? It’s cold as shit out here.” Spock nods and they walk back toward the apartment.

“Your use of excrement in a vast number of unrelated smilies is disturbing,” he says.

“Hey,” Jim says as he opens the door for Spock, “you’ve been up here,” he says gesturing to his head. “I’m a disturbing guy, _vato_.”

When they get back to his apartment, the guests have just started moving the various food items to the table.

“Good, you’re back,” McCoy says irascibly, gesturing at both of them. “Now you can help.”

With all of them at it, they make short work of the task. Spock feels slightly exposed, but Uhura smiles at him and pats him on the arm in passing and something settles inside him.

“Okay, here’s how this works,” McCoy says to them all.

“Yes Dad,” Sulu says and McCoy glares.

“Enough with the jokes or no one eats,” McCoy says. “Here are the plates,” McCoy says, gesturing to a stack on the counter. “There is the food,” he says pointing.

“We get it, geez,” Uhura says, pushing past him and taking a plate, quickly followed by Chapel and the rest. McCoy sputters, but Jim and Scotty pat him on the back, Jim saying “Merry Chanumas, Bones!” as they take their plates and get in line behind Sulu and Moreau. Spock steps in line behind Jim and McCoy glares at him.

“What are you looking at?” he asks grouchily.

Spock blinks. “An ill-tempered human, apparently,” he says, and Jim snickers and hands McCoy a bright blue beverage. McCoy scowls, but is apparently placated enough to get in line behind Spock.

There aren’t enough chairs for people to sit on, so some stand and others sit on the floor or on Spock’s couch, everyone careful of the menorah Jim had insisted on where five of its candles gleam in the window.

“Oh, and I almost forgot!” Jim says brightly, standing up and drawing the attention of the room just as everyone has almost finished their first plates. “I brought these,” he says producing several dreidels from his pocket.

“What are we playing for?” Uhura asks and Jim grins.

“I’m so glad you asked,” he says, reaching into a cabinet and producing a bowl of jelly beans with a smirk. “Whoever has the most jelly beans at the end of the night gets to pick someone to sing “[The Latke Song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwb1PnLcchw)” Jim says, producing a piece of paper—presumably with lyrics—and waving it over his head.

The beans are quickly divided and people begin splitting into groups of threes and fours.

Jim elbows Spock in the side. “Come on,” he says, his voice suddenly low and serious. “I need your help—Bones doesn’t know what all the letters mean, and I’ve made an oath on all that is sacred that Bones will be the one to sing that _pinche_ song.”

As their game progresses, Dr. McCoy’s face becomes redder and redder, both with alcohol and frustration as Jim lies to him over and over, making up ever more complicated rules to explain why he has to give up his beans.

“Right there!” McCoy’s says, pointing at the dreidel where Spock has just spun a hey, “Spock got two _shin_ ’s and a _hey!_ You said that meant I had to give up half my beans.”

“No, no,” Jim says shaking his head. “Honestly, you must be getting old if your memory is this bad. Spock got two _shins_ and a hey this time, but last time he got three _gimels_. That means he gets to have a quarter of your beans because you were the last person to spin a double- _shin_ - _hey_ , which is called the ‘Shmuck’s Split.’ If you were to get three _gimels_ on your next turn—which would be called an ‘Israeli Slam’—then you’d get the quarter back. It’s simple,” Jim says smiling with an cherubic expression that Spock makes a resolution never to trust.

McCoy glares suspiciously, but Uhura looks over her shoulder and says, “Jim’s right Leonard. If you get an Israeli Slam on the next turn, then you get to have the quarter back, and if you get the same set on your next turn, which would be called a ‘Jerusalem Shuffle,’ you get to have another quarter of Spock’s beans,” she says, waiting for McCoy to turn around before winking at Jim.

“I honestly don’t know how kids play this,” McCoy says, sighing and pushing a quarter of his beans towards Spock’s pile and taking a large sip of his drink.

Predictably, at the end of the night, Jim, by his own machinations and by borrowing seven jelly beans from Spock, had the most beans and Bones was promptly chosen to sing “The Latke Song.”

“Okay,” said a slightly intoxicated McCoy as he prepared to sing. “But no recording this.”

“We would never do that,” Sulu says as he, Scotty, and Uhura surreptitiously begin filming on their comms.

Jim cues the music and McCoy began to sing, his face pained.

 _“I am so mixed up that I cannot tell you,_  
_I’m sitting in this blender turning brown,_  
_I’ve made friends with the onions and the flour..."_

When he gets to the chorus, they all take pity on him and join in. Even Spock hears himself murmur the familiar words.

 _“I am a latke, I'm a latke_  
_And I'm waiting for Chanukah to come.”_

As all the guests begin filing out at 2130 hours, Chapel (who had not imbibed any alcohol) asked Jim if he wanted a ride back to campus.

“I think I’ll stay and help Spock clean up,” Jim says meeting Spock’s eyes. “Do you mind making sure Bones gets back alright?”

“Hey! I’m not that drunk—the fact that I know I’m drunk is proof that I’m sober,” McCoy sputters and Chapel winks at Jim with a nod.

When the door is closed behind the last guest, Jim puts his hands on his hips, surveying the room.

“ _Dios_ ,” he says, stretching. “I’m glad that actual Christmas isn’t till Wednesday. There’s no way I’d make it through _Misa de los Pastores_.”

“What is that?” Spock asks, curious, as he moves to the kitchen to begin washing the dishes.

“It’s the Midnight Mass held on Christmas Eve,” Jim says. “Why don’t you go meditate? I can clean up in here,” Jim offers.

Spock nods, but then proceeds to sweep the floor before going into his bedroom to do exactly that.

When he opens his eyes again, it is 2230 and Jim is asleep on his extra bedroll.

He goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth, going through the living room to reassure himself that the house is clean.

When he looks up, he sees that Jim had left the stars hanging from the ceiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: A panic attack occurs.
> 
> Translations:  
> chismoso=gossiping  
> Chingada=fucking  
> Aguafiestas=lit. “Water parties” but essentially is equivalent to “wet blanket” or “party pooper”  
> कृष्ण एन्चन्त्स थे वोर्ल्द बुत् र्हद एन्चन्त्स एवेन हिं=Krishna enchants the world but Rhada enchants even him.  
> la Oración por la Paz=the Prayer for Peace  
> Misa de los Pastores=Shepherds Mass  
> Pinche=fucking


	9. Chariots of Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations and credits at the end.  
> Need to Know: The 4x400 M is a track event in which each competing team is composed of 4 runners, each of which runs one 400 M (once around a track), handing off a baton to the next runner when they complete their lap.

_"Bring me my Bow of burning gold:_  
_Bring me my arrows of desire:_  
_Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!_  
_Bring me my Chariot of Fire!"_

- _Jerusalem_ , William Blake

* * *

 

With term over, the majority of Starfleet's cadets and instructors depart to their various homes.

Their absence leaves the campus quiet except for a few small, but voluble exceptions; Jim is staying on campus (“Where the fuck else would I go?”) as is Leonard McCoy, (“What do I look like, a happily married man? Do you think I would stay within spitting range of this idiot if I had a choice?”).

As a consequence, Spock’s holiday celebrations this year are much more conspicuous than they usually are—in that they exist at all.

On Christmas he takes Jim to midnight mass as McCoy had resolutely refused to do so on the grounds that he was "too goddamn old to stay up that late," despite the fact that he is, in actuality only 26.

The mass had been entirely conducted in Spanish and so Spock hadn’t understood most of the songs or the priest’s homily, but there had been Standard translations of the readings and creeds in the missals provided in every pew. 

He had been somewhat surprised to recognize the first reading from the _Nevi'im_ —the collection of prophets in the _Tanakh_ —which his mother had read to him as a young child.

The reading was from Deutero-Isaiah, one of his mothers particular favorites (“He’s the best with language in the whole book, although the Job-poet could give him a run for his money”) and the message had been a familiar one, about the prophesied restoration of Jerusalem during the Hebrew captivity in Babylon ( _“…you will be called by a new name that the mouth of God will bestow.”_ ).

Spock has always found the figures of speech in such writing arresting, if somewhat incomprehensible. 

While he had never encountered the two subsequent readings, the lighting of a final candle and the consumption of sacred food had, at least, been somewhat familiar.

And during a prayer called the _Padre Nuestro_ prayer, when the whole congregation had stood and joined hands, Jim had rested his fingertips on Spock's elbow. Through this contact, he had felt a pooling inrush of serenity from the minds of the surrounding people run through him like water through a sluice gate or the movement of current through a wire. 

The deep, somatic calm he had felt and which remained with him for long after was something he had never before experienced in a crowd; it was a feeling he had previously believed was reserved only for moments of secluded meditation or solitary study.

When the mass was over, Jim’s eyelids had been drooping as they made their way home on foot under the dark night sky.

“Didjyou know I’m taller than Jesus?” Jim had asked, his speech slightly slurred with tiredness. “He was like…5 feet tall. Isn’t that _wild?_ ” Jim had appeared to think for a moment. “But never say you’re [bigger than Jesus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_popular_than_Jesus)—youknow what happened when John Lennon said that…and that waszn't good, waz it?” Jim had said, almost veering off the sidewalk. 

Spock had reached out a hand and grabbed Jim’s arm, practically towing him the rest of the way. When they reached Spock’s apartment building, Jim was unable to climb the stairs, so Spock had hoisted him over his shoulder in one of the carries he had learned in his Starfleet ship-evacuation training. 

Jim, despite his small size, had not made the process easy. He giggled and squirmed and said “Lemme go Spaack, I’m big—not b’gger’en Jesus though—” He’d broken off sounding confused. “And I can do the…walk…thing.” 

Spock, of course, had not heeded these protests until they were in his apartment, at which point he deposited Jim onto the couch, where he'd immediately fallen asleep. Spock had unfurled their bedrolls, performed his own ablutions and then lifted Jim off the couch and carried him into the bedroom. There Jim had woken up enough to squirm out of his shoes, slacks and his button up shirt—falling quickly back to sleep as soon as this process was completed—his breathing a familiar sound in the otherwise quiet room.

Spock himself had fallen asleep soon after, thinking about the reading from Isaiah.

_“…you will be called by a new name that the mouth of God will bestow.No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. They will be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of the Lord; and you will be called Sought After, the City No Longer Deserted.”_

***

With the beginning of the Spring term, Starfleet’s campus once again fills with students. Ocean winds start blowing warmer and the nature preserve begins to be repopulated with migrant birds returning from their winter sojourns in Texas, Central and South America.

Although Vulcans do not entertain arbitrary preferences, Spock’s ears always listen for the songs of the small and colorful warblers—the aptly named Yellow-Warbler, the black-capped Wilson (named after a long dead Scottish poet who had once been thrown in prison for writing a satirical poem about his employer’s windmill), the speckled Waterthrushes, the Black Throated grays, the sluggish Macgillivray’s, the stately Orange Crowned, and the Hermits—along with the bigger Kestrels, Ospreys and Red-tailed Hawks who were their predators.

Spring also signals the beginning of the track season for Jim, and he begins coming to Spock’s office an hour later than usual to make time for practice (Spock ends up covertly shifting his official office hours to accommodate him), his hair wet from the showers.

Another change in Spock’s schedule occurs when, one afternoon in Spock’s office, Jim produces a magnetic 2-dimensional chess board and sets it on Spock’s desk (“You can be white, _Güero,_ ” Jim says with a smirk at his pun). When Spock had inquired as to the origin of the chessboard halfway through their game, Jim had adroitly explained that it was “on loan” from the chess club.

“Stealing is unethical,” Spock had said.

“It’s not _stealing_ , it’s _borrowing_ Spock, there’s a difference _,_ ” Jim had responded. “Like this, right now, I’m _borrowing_ your queen,” he said, capturing it with his own, “because I intend to give it back when you’ve lost.”

Jim ends up “borrowing” many more of his pieces during this game, however Spock is able to corner Jim’s king when, in a moment of overconfidence, Jim had left it completely unguarded in favor of promoting yet another pawn.

“Fuck!” Jim had said, looking at the board. “Sometimes I wish I could play without the king. He’s such an _inútil_ liability,” he’d said, as he set the pieces back in their positions. This task complete he’d looked up at Spock, his eyes intense and ordered, “Okay, now do that again.”

It is precisely this quality of Jim’s—namely his dogged competitiveness—why, on Wednesday, the 2nd of March Spock walks from his last class of the day (a drawn out thermodynamics lab) to Starfleet’s track. As he walks along a campus footpath, the occasional groups of students enjoying the good weather converge into a meandering crowd headed toward the enclosed track, from whence emerge the excitable cheers and groans that he has observed humans make only when in large groups.

When he is funneled into the stadium with the rest of the onlookers, Jim’s track meet (his first of the season) is already under way. As he walks up the bleacher steps, he spots Dr. McCoy in the second row of seats, and is gestured over. Spock, although he would prefer to sit in a higher, less crowded portion of the stands, acquiesces.

“He got second in the 100,” McCoy says brusquely, pointing to the field where Jim is standing in a group with his fellow athletes. “But that’s not really his race,” McCoy continues, and Spock prepares to be regaled by a lecture, for—Spock has learned—at such events, Dr. McCoy becomes, in Jim’s words, “an over-invested sports dad.” 

“He’s just not an 100-meters man, and his coach is boneheaded for wasting him there,” McCoy continues. “He’s fast, but he won’t get any faster in a dash that short,” McCoy says, gesturing with his hands. “Short sprints are run on nerves—which means races like the 100 are tailor-made for neurotics,” here McCoy elbows him in the side, and Spock chooses to ignore any intended meanings. “Jim needs to go further out. He’s a gut-runner. He’s all heart, so he does best on longer runs like the 4x400 M—which is Jim’s next event—and, as you can see…” 

McCoy continues to talk, citing statistics, discussing probabilities and leveling insults at everyone from the other schools’ teams to Jim himself. Spock listens perfunctorily, watching the blue, red and maroon clad athletes as they twitch like nervous _jarels_ on the track before the 800-meter gun (still an actual gun, further proof of the persistence of human illogic) goes off.

After waiting through the 800 M dash, the 200 M, and the 3200 M, which is the longest race of the day as McCoy informs him it's time for Jim's race. 

The first set of runners for the 4x400 M take their places, filling each of the eight lanes in a staggered array. 

“Jim’s the anchor,” McCoy informs him, “So he’ll be the last runner on his team—the one to finish the race. His coach at least knows that much.” Spock, who does not ask why running the last lap of a race equates a sentient being with a heavy object used to moor a vessel, merely nods, resolving to look the term up later.

“On your marks, get set—” the loud voice of the announcer booms.

Then the starter pistol fires, and the first set of runners take off, batons in hand. 

The race is suspenseful, the atmosphere thick with a tension so strong that it that presses telepathically into Spock’s awareness. 

The first leg ends with little differentiation by when Starfleet’s second leg runner ends his lap, he is in a 12.4 meter deficit to a yellow-clad runner who is in the lead, handing off his baton and staggering off the track on legs undergoing the painful process of acidosis. 

With the pass complete, Starfleet’s third leg runner—a thin boy who Spock quickly recognizes as Cadet Sulu—shoots off the line at high speed pushing quickly through the inertial barrier.

Flanked by two other runners, one in blue and the other in maroon, he begins to make up the deficit, drawing ever closer to the lead runner in yellow.

Spock watches as Jim takes his place on the starting line, and to his right, McCoy holds up his now familiar sign, still reading only “JIM.” 

Now on the last hundred meters, Sulu wheels around the final turn, closing the gap and coming level with the runner in yellow, then taking the first lane and shunting the yellow runner into the second. Starfleet is now tied for first. 

As the third leg runners slam into the line of waiting, fourth leg runners where Jim stands, Sulu slaps the baton into Jim’s hand at the same moment that the yellow team is performing the same exchange. 

Just as it appears the transfer has gone smoothly, the yellow-clad runner, likely overexcited, immediately tries to switch from the second lane to the more advantageous first lane—and _collides_ with Jim.

It looks wrong. Jim who believes so deeply in his own invulnerability, falling in a graceless tumble.

Before the rest of the crowd has even seen what has happened, Spock and McCoy are both on their feet, moving towards the track. By the time the crowd has taken its collective gasp, Spock is on the stairs, closely followed by McCoy. 

As Jim instinctively tries to break his fall, he half catches himself with his left hand, and Spock hears the snap in the moment before Jim’s body hits the ground. The other runner looks back, eyes wide, but keeps going, closely followed by the blue and maroon runners, who take second and third place. 

Jim gets to his knees and beside him he hears McCoy mutter “Stay down Jim,” his voice oddly loud in the silence that has fallen over the crowd.

Spock can almost imagine he hears Jim’s heartbeat and feel his expression of determination, and he knows the Doctor’s advice will go unheeded.

Spock’s (telepathic?) intuition is proven right as Jim surges to his feet using his other arm, not hesitating for an instant as he pushes off, chasing the leaders, a daunting 15.2 and 17.8 meters ahead respectively.

The crowd (mostly Starfleet) starts screaming as suddenly as they became quiet. Spock and McCoy finish making their way down to the field, McCoy angrily talking to the air all the while, (“Jim, come back here you idiot!), watching as Jim rounds the first corner. 

“There’s no way he can make up a 20 meter lead in a 400 meter race,” McCoy says, “And he’s a pigheaded fool to try.” 

“17.8,” Spock says as Jim sprints the second straight away, still in fourth place but closing the distance fast. McCoy humphs, and grumbles something, but when Jim passes the maroon runner, moving into third place with only the boy in blue and the leader in yellow, ahead, McCoy loses it and starts cheering. McCoy’s cheers and those of the crowd mount to a roar when Jim passes the blue runner, taking second place with the leader only 6.2 meters ahead on the final turn.

Although the noise (both psychic and tangible) of the onlookers is immense, Spock again is caught by the sensation that he can hear Jim’s heartbeat as he and the runner in yellow—now only 4.1 meters ahead—fly down the final 100 meters, Jim chasing the leader who, muscles straining, is clearly giving it everything he has.

“There’s no way,” McCoy murmurs in shock as Jim draws level in the last 5 meters.

There is. It is extremely close, Jim’s flailing broken arm crossing the finish line 0.9 seconds before that of his opponent, the rest of his body following quickly behind. 

As the crowd cheers in victory, Jim takes a single step past the finish line before he is staggering to a halt and tilting sideways. Without thought, Spock darts forward, catching him before he can hit the ground, McCoy right beside him, helping him lower Jim carefully to the ground just to the side of the track, where a worried crowd quickly forms around Jim, whose breathing is huge and too loud. 

“Get everyone to back up,” McCoy says to Spock without taking his eyes away from his tricorder, “And get someone to call a stretcher.”

Spock complies, lifting his voice. After he has secured a perimeter around where McCoy is attempting to revive Jim, he instructs the track coach, obviously still in shock, to call a stretcher. 

The coach snaps to attention right away, pulling out her comm, so Spock deems it safe to return to Jim and McCoy.

“Why do you always have to make everything so dramatic Jim?” McCoy is saying, his voice harsh but his hands gentle. “You fractured your wrist and you sprained your ankle in that last little show. Why the hell couldn’t you have just stayed put like a normal person?”

“I…love…drama,” Jim gets out between gasps, “…because…it…drives…you…insane.”

“Save your breath, kid,” McCoy says as he wraps Jim’s arm in a temporary cast, produced from some hidden pocket as though the Doctor had been expecting this result all along.

“The stretcher is on its way,” Spock informs McCoy who nods. 

“Didjyou…see that…S’pock?” Jim says, seeing him, his smile looking more like a grimace.

“Everyone saw that Jim,” McCoy growls, “Why you had to go and pull a stunt like that…” McCoy sighs. “Knowing you, you probably did it just for the attention.”

“That’s it…for Lent, Bones…I’m giving up…talking to you,” Jim mumbles his voice getting quieter.

“Hey there, take it easy kid,” McCoy says, taking Jim’s temperature with his hand and looking at his tricorder worriedly.

“Bones, make sure my cast is…a cool color,” Jim mumbles before he passes out.

***

Jim spends a week in a hot-pink wrist-cast and crutches, courtesy of Dr. McCoy. Although McCoy likely intended its color as punishment, Jim is thrilled and unrepentant.

“Here Spock,” he says the following Tuesday in Spock’s office. “I saved this spot especially for you,” he says, pointing to a small blank section on the otherwise graffitied cast. 

“I do not understand the purpose of—” Spock begins. Halfway through this sentiment however, he notices Jim’s mouth and eyebrows begin to set in the lines Spock has noticed that—just as lighting precedes thunder—signify that Spock will be treated to a one-sided, bilingual, legalistic disquisition in which it will be proven categorically and unequivocally that Spock is an “obstinate _aguafiestas fresa_.” 

“—however I will defer to your expertise in this matter,” Spock says, picking up a pen to sign the cast and watching the furrows on Jim’s face recede.

A week later, the crutches are removed and the cast is taken off and Jim can once again be seen sprinting down Starfleet’s walkways, leaping over puddles and ducking into buildings seconds before the bell tolling the hour sounds (“I’ve never been late,” Jim assures him). 

Through all this change and disturbance, something has become clear: Spock more and more has begun to think of Jim not (as he first had done) as a temporary interruption to his scheduled existence, but instead as a fixed, and (he is slowly beginning to realize), necessary part of his life.

***

Interlude: An itemized list of things Spock has learned about human behavior—usually the hard way.

_(recorded as a note on his PADD and often perused for reference)_

  1. Jim does not like spinach. At all.
  2. Dr. McCoy is a doctor. 
    1. Not a rocket scientist.
    2. Or a brick layer.
    3. Or Jim’s chauffer.
    4. Or a happily married man.
    5. Or a professional acrobat.
  3. When Dr. Chapel makes reference to Cadet Uhura’s “exceptional aural sensitivity” she is not referring to academic matters. 
    1. (This was initially confusing to me as Cadet Uhura _does_ have exceptional aural sensitivity, however it was explained to me on further inquiry that this comment contains comedic value because 'aural' and 'oral' are homophones, wherein "oral sensitivity" refers to cunnilingus, thus making Chapel's statement a double entendre—a form of prurient word play that humans find humorous).
  4. “It is better to ask forgiveness than permission” does not apply to anyone brown-eyed and shorter than five feet and six point seven inches. 
  5. “La Bamba” is the world’s greatest song. 
    1. Do not disagree. 
      1. (Even if you have a different opinion.)
  6. Jim is _not_ short. (Even if his height is less than the average height for males of his species).  
    1. If someone else insinuates that he _is_ short, do not dispute the scientific accuracy of "The Spanish made us short. The Aztecs were tall as fuck."
  7. The curiosity that ‘killed the cat,’ will force Spock to add several layers of extra security to all his digital devices. 
    1. And get Jim banned from his office if it happens again.
  8. Do not under any circumstances engage Engineer Scott in a conversation on the following subjects: 
    1. Engineering
    2. The _USS Enterprise_
    3. The engineering of the  _USS Enterprise_
  9. Neither monologues nor complete silence are considered socially acceptable forms of conversation.
  10. When someone says “I've got 99 problems and _______ ain’t one,” they do not literally have 99 problems.
  11. Color-coding one’s meals is considered odd.
  12. If someone asserts “You’d have to be crazy to try it,” do not assume that they will not try it. 
    1. (Especially if his name begins with a J).
  13. Cadet Sulu’s taste in music is not _literally_ a crime (and therefore does _not_ need to be reported to Starfleet Security).
  14. Bowl cuts have not been in style since _The Beatles_.  
    1. This means they are not in currently in style. 
      1. This means that they are liable to be mocked. 
        1. If and when they are mocked it is a sign of affection. 
          1. Not a sign of arbitrary cruelty.
  15. Never agree to a bet with Jim if you do not wish to pay for ice cream. 
  16. Avoid Dr. McCoy ~~before 10:00 AM~~  as often as possible.
  17. Never allow Jim to “explain” anything to you.
  18. In fact, all conversations with Jim that begin “You know, I’ve been thinking…” should be terminated at the earliest opportunity.



***

As March brightens to April, his mother makes her annual journey to Earth from Vulcan to visit him for the Passover. Over the past months, she has been delighted by his reports of his new acquaintances’ activities during their bimonthly calls and consequently, this year is the first time Spock does not have to stretch the truth to the point of dishonesty to convince her of his well-being, although their other holiday tradition—of not mentioning his fathers absence—remains unaltered. 

She had arrived at San Francisco’s shuttle port on Friday evening, the 14th day of the month of _Nisan_ , where he and Jim had picked her up using McCoy’s car (which Jim, after increasingly voluable complaints from McCoy, had finally fixed). 

After Spock and his mother had exchanged greetings, Jim had turned to her in the passenger seat and they had begun speaking in a near ceaseless stream of Spanish in which he heard his own name occur several times. 

As Spock has noticed that Jim sometimes speaks in Spanish both when he wishes to be understood and when he does not wish to be understood, he had simply listened in silence to the quick paced, lilting language.

When they had arrived at his apartment Jim had begun making tortillas (“Don’t worry Spock, tacos are kosher,”) while his mother and he had looked on in awe before assembling the the customary, pre-made _z’roa_ (which they replaced with beets), _beitzah_ (eggs—which had made Jim grin and wink at him), _maror_ (bitter horse radish), _karpas_ (salted herbs), and _haroset_ (apples and cinnamon). 

Dr. McCoy had joined them for the Seder, and together they had recited the [four traditional questions](http://www.reformjudaism.org/sites/default/files/4questions.mp3) and drunk the four glasses of _Manischewitz_.

“It never tastes any better,” his mother had sighed after the fourth glass.

“I kind of like it,” Jim had noted absently, sipping his drink. 

“Jim that’s because it’s practically 100% sugar,” McCoy had groused, attempting to prevent Jim from drinking anymore by snatching his glass out of his hands.

“Hey! I gave up _Coca-Cola_ for Lent, not grape juice!” Jim protested, unsuccessfully attempting to reach the glass with too-short arms.

“Jim, goddamnit you shouldn’t be drinking _Coca-Cola_ anyway! That stuff is poison for the body,” McCoy said sanctimoniously, emphasizing his point by placing the glass on a shelf out of Jim’s reach.

“I’ll have you know that _Coca-Cola_ is used as a part of mass in some parts of Mexico. It’s considered sacred,” Jim said with an air of superiority, ignoring his now inaccessible glass of grape juice and smugly drinking from Spock’s instead.

“Jim, you are the biggest liar I’ve ever met, and I still can’t believe you would lie about something like that,” McCoy said, flustered as he did not have the authority to remove Spock’s glass as well.

“ _Palabra de honor_ ,” Jim had said, crossing himself. “It’s a real thing.”

“I wonder how _Coca-Cola_ swung that one,” his mother had wondered aloud. McCoy had begun a long explanation about the evils of advertising and empty calories while Jim had leaned over and whispered to Spock.

“Bones thinks _Coca-Cola_ is _el diablo_ ,” he had said.

“I did not know the Doctor was a religious man,” Spock had answered in an undertone.

“He’s not, but he doesn’t let that stop him,” Jim had murmured back. 

“He does indeed appear to have a _devout_ sense of paranoia,” Spock replied seriously while McCoy was explaining to his mother how human beings were solely responsible for the demise of the universe. Jim had burst out laughing, burying his face in Spock’s shoulder and interrupting his roommates’ speech, earning a glare from Dr. McCoy and a look from his mother that he had never seen before. 

After Jim and the Doctor had departed, his mother sits on the couch while he straightens his kitchen and dining room.

“He really likes you, you know,” his mother says, apropos of nothing.

“Pardon?” Spock, who is in the middle of sorting re-usable napkins, asks.

“Jim,” she responds. “He likes you.”

“Yes, I believe he and I are friends,” Spock answers, slightly confused, as his mother had been informed of this.

“No, I mean—” his mother begins, before breaking off and giving him a long look that lasts 5.4 seconds and then shaking her head. “Just…be careful with him, okay?”

Spock, now more confused than he had been before says “I shall endeavor to do so,” his eyebrow lifting slightly as he goes back to sorting napkins.

His mother looks at him again, and sighs, before smiling and changing the subject to a series of lectures she is scheduled to give at the VSA the following month.

Spock, although he is still confused, allows the change of subject, meanwhile attempting to parse his mother’s ill-defined statements in one corner of his mind. Although he continues this analysis until he falls asleep that night, he is unable to ascertain the purpose of her warning.

***

Interlude 2: A diagram of Spock’s thought process. 

_(drawn by Jim, later scrunched up and thrown in the recycling bin in disgust)_

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/47945707056)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> Tanakh=the Hebrew Bible (approximately corresponding with the Christian Old Testament, although not the same).  
> Padre Nuestro=the Our Father (a catholic prayer)  
> Güero=white guy  
> inútil=useless  
> jarels=Vulcan equestrians  
> Nisan=the first month of the Hebrew calendar (ecclesiastical year) and the seventh month (eighth, in leap year) of the civil year. I think it translates to "month of happiness."  
> Manischewitz=popular Passover grape juice brand  
> z’roa, beitzah, maror, karpas, and haroset=special Passover foods, each with a symbolic meaning  
> el diablo=the devil  
> pensamientos de un huevón=thoughts of an egghead
> 
> Credits/inspirations:  
> “Chariots of Fire”—a movie about the 1924 Olympics, for the title and the details of Jim’s track meet and a comment made by Bones. [Historical Note: Olympic runner Eric Liddell (on whom Jim's race is based) actually did make up a 20 M deficit after being knocked down at the beginning of a race.]  
> “[Tempest in a Teacup](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2124762/chapters/4637214)”—a Zutara fic by AkaVertigo, for Spock’s list.  
> “[The Rest of their Lives](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3290873/chapters/7181864),”—a Eren/Levi fic by zhedang for the conversation between Spock and Amanda.  
> “A Visit from the Goon Squad,”—a 2011 novel by Jennifer Egan, for Jim’s diagram.


	10. T.S. Eliot the racist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings/spoilers in endnotes  
> Translations at the end
> 
> Thanks to the wonderful [summerofspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerofspock/pseuds/summerofspock) who did an amazing job beta'ing this chapter. Check out their current story “[The Kepler Omicron Party](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17372276/chapters/40881293)” if you like to be spooked while reveling in K/S stories.

“‘April is the cruelest month,’” Jim quotes dramatically, looking up from his pile of engineering homework on an 89° Friday at the end of April. “And T.S. Eliot was racist,” he says, frowning. “Let’s go swimming Spock.”

Spock considers Jim’s request, carefully not allowing himself to glance outside as he knows from experience that Jim will take this as a sign of willingness to indulge him.

Aside from the admittedly memorable incident on Easter—when Jim had walked up to him holding what appeared to be a tiny, egg-shaped piñata and promptly broken it over Spock's head, showering him with confetti (“It’s a _cascarón_ , Professor Spock. It’s _traditional_ ,” Jim had said as though this completely and obviously justified dousing someone in small bits of multi-colored paper and sparkles. “And besides, I thought you’d appreciate the literalism,” he’d said, pulling another piñata egg from his pocket. “And don’t worry, this one’s for Bones,” he’d said as Spock stepped hastily back)—Spock had seen Jim infrequently in the 0.896 months since the Passover Seder.

Jim had been busy with his overextended class schedule and the more rigorous pace of the Spring term, spending long hours in the library and once even falling asleep in a study cubicle. Jim had mentioned this incident to Spock in passing—his face slightly paler than usual and a tightness in his jaw’s superficial masseter—and Spock surmised that this occurrence, as humorous as Jim tried to make it sound, had been terrifying, fraught as it was with the risk that Jim would have a nightmare in a public setting.

Spock had asked Jim, in as oblique a way as he knew how (what he had actually done was say “I have read that when humans undergo stress related to professional or academic pressures their psychosomatic responses increase in intensity, often resulting in abnormal sleep architecture. Results for candidates with a history of post-traumatic stress disorder were, according to one study, particularly acute,” and then looked at Jim significantly).

And, in a rare moment of unforced vulnerability Jim had admitted that he had not been sleeping well.

“I—I don’t really remember a lot of what happened on—you know,” Jim had said haltingly. “On Tarsus. I don’t remember what I did. I know it was bad, but I don’t even remember how…” Here Jim looked down, his lips moving silently. _Praying perhaps_ , Spock had thought.

When he’d spoken, his voice had been almost inaudible. “I don’t even remember how my mom _died_. Pike—he's the one who got me onto the evacuation shuttle you know—" Jim had said, off-handedly answering Spock's long-standing question as to how Jim and Pike knew one another.

"—he told me they never found her body. It’s something I talk to my therapist about. He says it’s a case of trauma induced repression and that I'll probably remember someday. And I think he’s right, but I also,” he’d said, looking up again, and looking as though this action cost him, “I also think the _other me_ , you know—”

Spock did know. He had seen his face in Jim’s dreams and once, in Jim’s sketchbook; a blonde, long-haired boy who looked out at him from the page with unearthly blue eyes. A boy who was Jim and who wasn’t.

“I don’t know if he’s protecting me from them or if he stole my memories, but _he_ has them. All those things—bad things—I must have done...” here Jim’s face had gone taut with suppressed emotion, “I think _he_ did them.”

If Spock hadn’t been inside Jim’s head and seen the evidence of what he was referring to, what Jim had said might have sounded crazy.

“I know that sounds crazy,” Jim had said after a moment. “But sometimes I feel like there’s more than one _me_ inside my head,” Jim had said, scowling as he tried to explain himself. “There’s who I _think_ I am, but there’s also other versions of me—or parts of me—that sometimes fight to be in control. And if I let them make the decisions then its not me, but someone else who did it…Does that make any sense?”

Spock, who had always been at least two different people, said, “Yes Jim, it does.”

Jim had given him a strained smiled and said “It’s still fucking weird that one of the other me’s is a _pinche gringo_ ,” Jim had said, his smile ticking up a notch, “No offense _Blanco,”_ he’d said as he attempted to poke Spock in the side.

Spock had, in a well-practiced motion, deftly sidestepped the attack.

These two intermittent meetings aside however, Spock has seen much less of Jim than he has grown accustomed to, and so, when Jim suggests they go swimming, he looks up from his PADD and says “I do not know how to swim, however—”

But he is unable to finish his sentence because Jim’s eyes widen and he begins speaking in flustered Spanish. Spock, who has been trying to learn some of the language in his spare time only catches something that sounds like “you crazy fucking egg _._ ”

From this Spock sagely infers that Jim is angry.

While Jim’s fits of anger do not occur often, his outbursts are usually related to matters of food and survival and can be explosive if not de-escalated.

“Okay, okay, it's fine. I’ll teach you,” Jim says when he finally lapses into English, pinching the bridge of his nose and speaking with his peculiar brand of determination.

“I do not—” Spock starts again.

“No, I’m not hearing it. You can’t go through life not knowing how to swim, for the safety liability alone—how did Starfleet let you get away with that anyway?—but more importantly,” Jim says, holding up a finger dramatically, and pronouncing his next words like an order, “because swimming is fun.”

Some part of this argument or its delivery must have been convincing to Spock because half an hour later he and Jim are on his bicycle, pedaling through the burning daylight to the beach.

Spock’s cargo rack is taken up by a basket he has been using to port his materials to and from campus and so Jim sits on his handlebars, helmet on—having produced this piece of safety equipment from his backpack and thereby proving that he had counted on this venture long before he had posed the question in a seemingly _ad lib_ manner or Spock had given his consent to it.

The heat pouring off the city eventually eases off as the sidewalk transitions into a bike path that cuts under the cool tree-shadows of the Presidio. Eventually, after 32.6 minutes, they reach Marshall Beach, a wide stretch of sand between beryl colored cliffs covered in California’s stalwart vegetation.

Spock finds a place to lean his bike within view of the beach and then follows Jim’s example, taking off his shoes, socks and overshirt. He hesitates before taking off his Starfleet issue slacks, but, looking around, he sees that among the intermittent groups of brightly colored beings on this beach, all are in similar states of undress. Jim strips down to his boxer shorts but Spock leaves his black undershirt on despite the heat of the day.

“You’re such a _miedica_ rich kid,” Jim says but his smile is gentle when Spock hesitates again as they cross the wet-sand line and step into the surf.

The ocean water is a stiff 55° (approximately—Spock’s temperature gauge loses accuracy in colder temperatures), but Spock follows Jim out until Jim is up to his neck and the water is hitting Spock’s chest.

From this distance, the beaches visitors blur into a Tibetan flag of color.

“I’ll do everything first so you’ll know exactly what to do,” Jim says. “Okay, this is the most basic move, which you can always do if you’re far out and you get tired. Support my head so I don’t get water up my nose,” Jim says as he flips onto his back, spreading his arms and legs like a starfish.

“It’s called a starfish,” Jim says.

Spock obeys Jim’s previous order to support his head, and for a moment, they are suspended like that, Spock standing on the ocean floor, seaweed curling around his ankles as the waves rush under him and Jim lying on the ocean surface, the sunlight turning the water a deep green blue.

Jim looks up had him, his throat bared as his chin tips upward and all of a sudden Spock understands what this must mean to Jim—the angry, suspicious boy who wouldn’t fall asleep in a stranger’s house, who watched him through narrowed eyes and who still keeps his back to the wall. Their eyes meet and Spock feels something inside him shift.

Then it is his turn, and Spock copies Jim’s posture, feeling the waves pushing at his back as he floats on the surface, Jim’s sure hands supporting his head and the back of his knees. He closes his eyes, feeling the warm sunlight gild his face with heat.

“You always have to have two pockets,” his mother had said to him as a child. “Take two pieces of paper. On one of them write ‘for my sake the world was created’ and on the other ‘I am but dust and ashes,’” she had told him. “And never leave home without them.”

Spock had always understood and accepted the second axiom intuitively. It was in fact, quite literally true in a scientific sense: everything in the universe was made up of the dust of hydrogen and helium bound together by nucleosynthesis and the inevitable laws of physics.

 _“Bishvili nivra ha-olam._ _I am but dust and ashes.”_

With his head supported by Jim’s hands and his body floating on the cold salt waves, for the first time in his life, Spock understands the first axiom. He feels…like he matters enough that the entire universe could have been created for this moment, and it would have been worth it.

 _“V'anokhi afar v'efer._ _For my sake the world was created.”_

Afterwards, Jim demonstrates how to move his arms and how to kick. Spock, always an apt learner, does as Jim instructs and soon he is able to propel himself through the water; and, after several minutes of working to optimize his motions he is able to outpace Jim’s smooth stroke.

“Fuck you Spock,” Jim says but he’s grinning when Spock pauses to look back after having sped past him.

“Genetically full Vulcans cannot swim,” Spock tells him, his mouth quirking slightly.

Jim’s eyes widen at the implications of this statement before he smirks again.

“Then you won’t mind me doing this!” Jim says, sending a wave of water in his direction.

21.9 minutes later they are back on the beach, both sopping and cold with Jim muttering about superior strength and supposed pacifism while Spock attempts to wick the water from his hair with his shirt-sleeve.

“Let me help,” Jim says, reaching up to fix Spock’s hair.

Jim’s fingers feel pleasant against his scalp and so he tips his head forward slightly.

“Here, I can finally do something about that godawful bowl cut,” Jim says. _Sign of affection_ , Spock thinks.

“I guess I understand where you’re coming from though,” Jim says thoughtfully as he does his work. “Having the same haircut as everyone else means there’s no room for confusion. I used to have long hair when I was little and people always thought I was a girl—and let me tell you Spock, girls have to deal with so much shit in this life.”

1.01 minutes later Jim steps back and Spock lifts his head. Spock’s shadow is thrown across Jim’s face and Jim’s pupils dilate slightly in the relative decrease in light intake.

“ _Dios mio,_ you look cool for probably the first time in your life. I’ll add it to the list of things I’ll be billing you for as soon as you can afford it,” Jim says smirking. _Not arbitrary cruelty,_ Spock thinks.

“Not that you’ll ever be able to on science officer—”

A song begins to play from somewhere across the sand and Jim breaks off as his expression shifts from smugness into surprised happiness.

“I love this song!” Jim exclaims as dreamy Spanish lyrics poor out over the sand and Jim’s smile grows as he mouths some of the lyrics.

 _“…Y al mirarte recordé_  
_Que ya todo lo encontré._  
_Tu mano, en mi mano…”_

The song continues alongside Jim’s laughter and Spock watches for a moment as Jim walks back towards the place they had left Spock’s bicycle.

***

They bike through muraled streets, racing the sun across the reddening sky and arriving at Spock’s apartment just as it begins to dip below the horizon.

The apartment is stuffy with heat, and Spock can feel a line of sweat beginning to form at the nape of his neck _—_ another “benefit” of his human heritage _—_ now that there is no longer any movement of air to evaporate it.  

Half-dry from the wind and clothes stiff with sand and brine, Jim starts stripping as soon as they step into Spock’s living room, sand pouring out of his shoes onto Spock’s clean floor.

“Do that outside Jim,” Spock admonishes.

“You want me to do _this_ outside?” Jim asks pulling off his shirt.

“Jim,” Spock says in a tone that usually makes Jim listen.

But Jim does not listen this time.

“Make me,” Jim says instead, his eyes glinting, and whips his shirt towards Spock head. Spock responds instinctually, grabbing the shirt before it can hit him in the face.

Unfortunately this motion leaves him open to Jim’s second attack which comes 0.21 seconds later in the form of Jim’s elbow flying towards his side, connecting with his ribs. Spock jerks to avoid the bulk of the blow’s force and grabs at Jim’s upper arms to restrain him. Jim laughs with delight, twisting to the side and using the momentum of Spock’s motion to yank him sideways and off balance. He hooks a leg behind one of Spock’s, shoving his foot into the back of Spock’s knee and knocking Spock’s legs out from under him.

Spock has to release Jim’s arms to break his fall as they crash to the floor, Jim landing on top of him and knocking the breath from his lungs.

Spock’s blood races with adrenaline as Jim attempts to pin him, pressing a forearm to Spock’s wrists to secure them to the ground and attempting to use his other forearm to cut off Spock’s air supply. At this Spock’s many years of combat training kick in and he rolls them over, using his greater mass to his advantage and blocking Jim’s attempt to restrain him. Jim’s back collides with the floor, and Spock grabs Jim’s wrists, securing them over his head with one hand. He slams his other hand onto Jim’s chest to press him down, his elbow digging into Jim’s stomach. Jim gasps for air, wriggling to get free. He jerks his leg up, trying to knee Spock in the groin, but Spock traps it against the ground with his own thigh. Jim bucks in an effort to throw him off, but as their torsos press against one another, Spock sees Jim’s grin fall from his face and his eyes dilate as they meet Spock’s.

Spock notices own pupils dilating, the heat from Jim’s skin suddenly registering through their many places of contact. Spock struggles to focus, his mind blurring as he shifts his grip on Jim’s wrists, losing one, which flies up to knock into his chest in an attempt to gain the leverage necessary to flip them.

_What—?_

Jim’s eyes widen in shock as his thigh, trapped between Spock’s legs shifts, brushing Spock’s—

And Spock is suddenly halfway across the room.

“Spock—” Jim begins, as he sits up, wide-eyed and panicked, but Spock has already slammed the door shut behind him, bolting down the stairs and out into the street where the evening is spread out against the sky—T.S. Eliot’s etherized patient.

 _T.S. Eliot was a racist_ , he thinks disjointedly.

When he comes back to himself it is fully dark and he does not know where he is.

He feels paradoxically both hot and cold, his skin crawling with restless energy and his mind exhausted with shame.

He keeps walking under the horrible sky, through the tedious muttering streets, pushing his hands into his pockets and hunching his shoulders as a cold wind rushes past him, howling like a wild animal and getting into all the places underneath his clothes. Jim is 18. 18 and _—_

_A leg moving between—_

_No._ He thinks as he shoves the thought down.

 _“I should have been a pair of ragged claws…”_ he thinks nonsensically. _“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan…”_

_Touching him, no one touches him, a chest and stomach under his—_

His nostrils flare and his pants tighten as the thought surges up again—another pantomime demon—so tangible he can almost _feel_ —

 _No no no no no_.

_“For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.”_

Off to his left he sees a giant, glowing holo advertisement, horizontally terraced in the side of a building, of a barely clothed woman, her eyes half-lidded and her mouth open like—

The scar on his abdomen twinges and _Tyr-al-tep_ begins to whisper to him.

 _No no no no no no_ **_no_**.

***

Spock had often wished, as a child, that he, like the Greek goddess Athena, had been born directly from thought itself (or, barring that, from Sarek’s eminently logical head), instead of from the test tube in which his Human and Vulcan cells had first come to coalesce.

Her birth story appealed to him, as it would have prevented many of the problems that followed.

Vulcans—as all Vulcans over the age of eight know—experience sexual arousal only once every seven years after they have reached physical maturity. During the interim between the terrifying losses of control associated with _pon farr,_ Vulcans go undistracted by thoughts of mating and sex. It was a logical trade: mental clarity in exchange for the pleasures associated with intimacy.

Humans would, no doubt, have balked at such an ascetic evolutionary sacrifice.

Spock, the only half-Human and half-Vulcan in existence, had not been given a choice.

At 17, Spock had experienced his first erection. He had woken early in the morning, sweating and feeling too warm. The sheets sliding between his legs maddening and pleasurable until, moments later, his mind had jolted into consciousness.

Ashamed and horrified, Spock had stumbled to the bathroom and taken a shower so cold that it left him sneezing and his teeth chattering.

At school he’d kept his eyes down, not wanting to look into the faces of his fellow classmates, believing illogically that if he met their eyes they would know the unnamable thing that had happened to him that morning.

The next time it happened had been at a public lecture. Spock, utterly revolted with himself, had fled the lecture hall, finding a bathroom where he had thrown up.

The next time it happened Spock had taken a sharp ceremonial knife, locked the door to his room, and attempted to castrate himself.

He had woken in a pool of green blood— _my blood_ , he had thought blearily—his mother jabbing a hypo into his neck, to slow the blood loss, as he had later learned.

Spock had watched as she ran out of the room for a dermal regenerator, losing consciousness again before she came back.

He had woken in his own bed, clothed now, and un-remembering, to the sound of his parents arguing, his mother shouting about the illogic of Vulcan logic, his father’s responses too quiet to hear.

 _Her anger is pointless_ , he had thought, as he often had before.

Several minutes later his mother had entered his room, her face taught and strained.

When he twisted to look at her, the ropy, newly formed scar running from his pelvis to his lower abdomen had twinged painfully, and all his memories came rushing back at once.

He still remembers the way his face had contorted as he tried to hold back his tears.

“Spock,” she had said, holding him as she had not done since he was a child, too young to understand that human affection was illogical.

Afterward, he had been sent to sessions with a Vulcan healer, and though he was told that his mind was unruly and too human, he had been taught meditation techniques that allowed him to prevent and dispel such physical responses.

It was a full year later before he had realized that he could not stay on Vulcan.

When the VSA’s admissions panel had impugned his mother’s genetic contribution to his being, it merely confirmed that his decision to join Starfleet was the only logical one if he ever wished to be more than Spock the _disadvantaged_ , Spock the unbonded, mongrel half-breed, manufactured like Frankenstein’s monster from component parts brought together by science most would consider unnatural.

He could not stay on a planet where he was like dirt inside a house.

Now, 3.83 years after departing Vulcan, Spock makes his way back to his apartment in the cold, advertisements displaying the sensual contours of undulating bodies, touching each other and being touched flickering around him in the darkness.

When he gets home, Jim is gone.

 _“I am but dust and ashes._ ”

***

On the morning of Saturday, Stardate 2252.110 the Vulcan Spock wakes at 0500 hours when the sky outside is still dark. He kneels, adopting the _ikapirak_ , the closed posture of meditation in which the head is bowed. At 0600 hours he stands, moving to his living room and proceeds through the poses of the _Suus Mahna,_ finishing in the posture of _Kir-Alep_ , the male god of peace who stands between war and death, as he has done every day for the last 3.831 years that he has been on Earth.

At 0730 he bikes to Starfleet’s campus under the now lightening sky, securing his bicycle under an awning outside of Science Building A and proceeding to laboratory 309. The lab is dark and after entering the precise atmospheric conditions and instrumental settings into a spreadsheet, he turns on his laser and begins straightening its light path.

He gets the call at exactly 1334.6 hours, the sound of his comm unnaturally loud in the darkness of the room.

Spock ignores it for exactly 4 consecutive buzzes before adjusting his goggles and following the path of phosphorescent dots back behind the radiation-proof curtain.

When he looks at his comm, he half expects the screen to say that it is McCoy, or his mother, or Pike improbably calling him from outer space—anyone besides who he knows it will be.

It is Jim, of course.

Spock lets it ring once more before answering the call.

Then he hears a suppressed, hiccuping sob that makes his heart miss one of its ever regular beats.

“It’s my _abuela_ ,” Jim says. “She had another stroke and the doctors think she might—”

There is another muffled sob. “Bones is gone for the weekend and I didn’t know who to call,” Jim says, his voice breaking like jagged mountain peaks. “You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but I’m not, I—”

“Jim, where are you?” Spock asks, his voice calm.

“The hill where we watched the fireworks. I was running and I just got the call and—”

“I will be there in 7.4 minutes,” Spock says, cutting Jim off as he clicks through his power down protocol in record time.

“Okay,” Jim says, his voice sounding slightly hoarse on the other side of the comm.

Spock arrives at Bernal Hill 7.01 minutes later, having requisitioned a pay-by-the-hour aircar from Starfleet’s parking lot.

Jim Kirk is standing at the base of the trail that he and Jim had climbed up all those months before. Standing on the sidewalk he looks almost as young and scared as he had when they'd first met, his ankles muddy and his face pale and utterly unknowable.

Spock pulls up to the curb and pushes open the passenger seat door and Jim steps in.

“What are the coordinates of her hospital?” Spock asks and Jim mutely inputs them into the cars automated GPS.

After 10.3 minutes of driving at precisely the speed limit Jim speaks.

“Thanks for coming to pick me up Spock,” he says.

“No thanks are necessary,” Spock responds. It is precisely the kind of comment that usually provokes a stinging retort for its over literalism, but Jim is silent for the next 2.59 hours until he receives a call from the hospital 40 minutes from their destination.

The conversation with the hospital representative is brief, with Jim asking several questions about his grandmother’s condition and whether he can talk to her now? no? how soon can he talk to her?

When Jim hangs up his voice is infused with relief. “She’s sleeping,” Jim says. “They’ve managed to stabilize her but I don’t know what condition she’s going to be in because they don’t either,” Jim sighs in frustration. “All I know is that she had a hemorrhagic stroke—that’s the bad kind—at about 3 o’clock in the morning and they started treatment within the hour—which they told me is good.”

"How long has she been ill?" Spock asks quietly. He had known Jim's grandmother was in a nursing home of course, as it was the circumstance that had caused Jim to stay with him over the summer, but he hadn't known exactly why.

“She had her first stroke about a year ago, before we met,” he says, glancing at Spock. “And afterwards they moved her into memory care because she developed Alzheimer’s disease related dementia in combination with her stroke. Ever since she’s been at a higher risk for something like this to happen, but she’s been doing really well for the last year so I started hoping—”

Jim tightens his lips and continues “What doctors can do today would seem like miracles to the people living just a hundred years ago...but the human brain is still a mystery. Which I bet is no surprise to you, _Huevo_ ,” Jim tacks on with a trace of his usual light-hearted delivery, and Spock has to agree that it is not.

When they arrive at the hospital they are quickly signed in, and then shunted into an ICU ward where they are asked to wait.

24.68 minutes later a nurse approaches them.

“You can see her now,” he says gently. “This way,” he says, leading them to a door off the main hall. “She’s just woken up. So far what we’re looking at is slight paralysis on the right side of the body, which in nine cases out of ten is temporary. There will probably also be some increased aphasia and trouble with pronunciation but the good news is that the worst is over for now. Her doctors had time for a preliminary evaluation about an hour ago while she was eating. She tried to give one of them her pudding cup because she thought they looked too thin and needed to eat more," the nurse says with a quirk of his lips. "I think she’ll be glad to see you.”

“That sounds like her,” Jim says with a small smile. “I’d better go in alone at first,” he says to Spock. “She does best with familiar faces.”

Jim carefully opens the door and steps in and it swings shut behind him. Spock waits outside, hearing the murmur of voices through the door. Despite the softness of the voices, Spock’s Vulcan hearing makes catching parts of the conversation unavoidable, so he moves further down the hallway until he is asked to move. Reluctantly, he sits in the chair provided for him, listing to quiet voices filtering through.

“You’ve gotten so tall,” an old woman’s voice is saying, her voice slightly slurred, as though spoken with a heavy tongue. “It is the fault of the Spanish that our people are short, the Aztecs were very tall,” she says, a humor that reminds Spock of Jim coloring her worn voice.

“That’s right,” Jim says proudly. “The genes of _los Espa_ _ñoles_ couldn’t keep me down.”

There is a pause and then “You look like my son…but your name is Jim _, ¿verdad?”_ the old woman asks.

“Yes, that’s right _Abuela_ ,” Jim says softly. “I’m Jim, but I look like him. George _fue mi papá, ¿recuerdas?_ ”

“ _Si recuerdo, pero_ …Are you sure? You look just like my son.” Jim says something in Spanish before switching back to Standard.

“Why don’t you tell me about him? _Estabas_ _dijiendome_ about how he met my mom.”

Here the woman’s voice gains in confidence although it is still slow, and filled with lapses. “ _Si, si_. You were a radio host at your school…You were always so romantic _mi hijo_. You played nothing but love songs until she said yes.”

“That’s right. And my favorite song was _“Baby Love”_ by _the Supremes_ because I was a sap—sentimental I mean.”

It is strange to hear Jim talk about his father, and Spock realizes that it is because he has never heard Jim do so before.

Here the woman says something that comes out as gibberish, the sounds becoming less coherent as the woman strains to speak.

After a pause she says something in more fluent Spanish. Spock only catches the word he knows means "forget."

“ _Esta bien_ , I forget what I’m trying to say too sometimes,” Jim says gently. “We’re talking about how my dad loved _the Supremes_.”

A raspy laugh. “Yes, you had terrible taste in music my son. I don’t know where you got it from. Your father and I were always so confused, we…didn’t know what we did wrong.”

“Hey!” Jim exclaims, laughing. “You were in love with Morrissey, so you don’t get to tell me what to like!”

“ _The Smiths_ are the best,” Jim’s grandmother says and he laughs again.

“ _La Bamba_ is better,” Jim says.

“ _La Bamba_ is good,” his grandmother concedes.

“Here, I’ll play it.” Jim is quiet for a moment, presumably locating the song.

Then, the now familiar song begins to play and Jim and his grandmother join in, one voice high and quick, the other hoarse and labored, but neither miss a word.

 _“Para bailar La Bamba_  
_Para bailar La Bamba_  
_Se necessita una poca de gracia_  
_Una poca de gracia_  
_Para mi, para ti, ay arriba, ay arriba_  
_Ay, arriba arriba_  
_Por ti sere, por ti sere, por ti sere…"_

After the song ends, the rest of their conversation is in Spanish. Then a nurse steps in and tells Jim she needs to rest.

“ _Adios_ ,” Jim says.

“ _Adios mi hijo_ , _te amo_ ,” the old woman responds.

“ _Te amo también Abuela._ ”

The door opens and Jim steps through, closing it carefully behind him. On seeing Spock, Jim opens his mouth to speak but nothing comes out.

“What is _La Bamba_?” Spock asks, his curiosity overcoming his desire not to inform Jim of that he had heard part of their conversation.

Spock expects Jim to be upset at the question and its implication, but instead his eyes crease with humor. “I can’t believe you’ve been my friend for this long and you still don’t know. _La Bamba_ is a wedding dance. When Ritchie Valens sang it he made it rock and roll, but before that it was something that got sung at Mexican weddings.

"There’s this dance where the couple has to try to tie a red ribbon into a bow using only their feet. The music gets faster and faster and the couple can’t stop dancing until it’s done. That’s why the lyric goes ‘to dance the Bamba, you need a little bit of grace—for me and for you,’ because it’s supposed to be really hard. It must be I guess, because I’ve never actually seen someone do it,” Jim says, his mouth quirking up, “and I’ve been to a shit load of Mexican weddings.”

***

After Jim has a long consultation with his grandmother’s doctors, they exit out the hospital’s front doors and locate their borrowed car.

They are in Santa Maria, (“I swear to God I think she chose it just for the name,”) a mid-sized coastal city in Southern California, between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The air is hot at 97° but a light rain is falling, steaming when it hits the concrete of the parking structure.

“Can we get something to eat?” Jim asks, and Spock, who realizes that it is 1850 hours and he has not eaten since breakfast, (having yet again forgotten a lunch), aquieces.

Once they are seated, Spock ignites the engine and the aircar lifts skyward, their warm breath turning the interior of the car humid.

 _The view from up here is truly remarkable_ , Spock thinks as they ascend to the customary 300 M cruising altitude and the wideness of Earth spreads out below them, the horizon growing indistinct where clouds bow to the Earth to release their burdens of precipitation.

They pull over at a small but noisy restaurant that Jim had chosen for them because it was listed as having vegetarian food.

The floor inside is slippery with rain and they find seats in a booth, sitting across from one another over a formica-topped table. When a server asks for their order, Spock requests a sandwich and Jim orders _fajitas_.

“I _know_ they’re not actually Mexican,” Jim says, although Spock doesn’t even know what _fajitas_ are (they apparently contain meat). “I just really want them and it doesn’t have to reflect on my racial identity.”

“Your logic is sound,” Spock says and Jim rolls his eyes, a grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

As they wait to be served, Jim begins tapping first his fingers against the table, and then his foot against the ground. 

 _Repetitive motions or gestures are often a sign of nervousness in humans,_ Spock notes.

“Spock, about yesterday…” Jim starts and then lets his question fray into silence.

When Spock opens his mouth, speaking is easier than he had expected it would be.

“I apologize for my behavior yesterday,” Spock says. “I...reacted without consideration. Such matters are not discussed on Vulcan and I find it…difficult to explain.” 

“What happened Spock?” Jim asks quietly.

Jim’s question is open-ended, and Spock has known him long enough to be aware that this was intentional. ‘What happened yesterday?’ and ‘What happened to you?’ are rolled into one and Spock is given a choice between them.

“Vulcans are biologically different from humans in many ways,” Spock begins carefully. “One key difference is that they do not mate or engage in mating activity outside of very… _particular_ circumstances,” Spock says, deciding to avoid mention of _pon farr_ as much as possible. “However, although I was raised to be Vulcan, my biology is more…human in this regard.”

“So you…” Jim begins and trails off again and the silence between them fills with unsaid words.

Spock nods, suppressing his vasodilation response. “This was very distressing to me as an adolescent as I did not expect or want such...reactions.”

Jim tilts his head to the side. “So are you asexual?” he asks bluntly.

This time Spock cannot stop his face from flushing. He shakes his head. “It was because I am not that was the source of my distress. When I was seventeen, I attempted to…sterilize myself,” he gets out, looking at his hands. “The attempt, illogical and impulsive as it was, proved…unsuccessful.”

“That’s why you have,” Jim says quietly, drawing a line across his own abdomen. “I saw it during that first week I stayed with you,” Jim explains, blushing slightly. “While you were doing the _Suus Manha_.”

Spock nods and Jim is silent for a moment.

“Do you still feel that way?” Jim asks.

Spock shakes his head, “No,” he says. Then amends “Not the majority of the time,” which is the complete truth.

“That’s pretty fucked up _Huevón_ ,” Jim tells him

Illogically, Spock feels the corner of his mouth quirk up.

“Your choice of vocabulary, although usually lacking, is, in this instance, excessively appropriate.”

Jim’s laughter, as it often is when Spock tells a joke, is surprised and inharmonious.

“ _Dios_ , I’m Catholic,” Jim says. “ _I’m_ supposed to be the one who feels guilty about sex. Well I’m glad you told me straight out. You don’t want to know what I was planning to get it out of you.”

“What were you planning?” Spock asks, curious.

“I said you don’t want to know,” Jim insists, looking embarrassed.

“What was it?”

“Well…” Jim said now looking fully uncomfortable, “I'm telling you it was bad...I was desperate and didn't know what to and...It _might_ have involved a popsicle,” Jim says in a rush and Spock’s eyes widen. “Yeah,” Jim says apologetically. “I told you you didn’t want to know. You probably aren’t aware of this, but my ideas aren’t always 100% well-thought out and fantastic."

Spock, who understands this to be the tacit apology that it is, resists rolling his eyes. “I believe there are few people more aware of that then I,” he says and Jim flips him his middle finger.

Just then their food arrives and Jim performs his usual custom of muttering a quick prayer before happily crowing over his food. In another minute, in between bites, Jim starts telling Spock about something he read on the Pope’s social media account and Spock tells him not to talk with his mouth open.

They speak, as they sometimes do in Spock’s office, about Spock’s research (“Official testing will begin this summer,” “Way to go egghead!”), about Jim’s opinion of Starfleet’s canteen food (“Never again. I think it’s made of the souls of all the people who have died eating it.”), about McCoy’s latest outrages (“Can you believe he told me I can’t use his fridge anymore?” “As there is 67% chance that he has done so to prevent you from imbibing carbonated sugar, yes Jim, I can.”) and about Spock’s diet (“I swear to God,” Jim says crossing himself, “If I open your refrigerator and see another fucking scoby, I will drop-kick it into your _face_.”).

In short, all things that are both entirely unimportant and the very essence of their lives. As they get into the car and lift off into the now darkened sky, Spock, comforted by this familiar rhythm glances at Jim, who is gesturing animatedly—in the middle of explaining his conspiracy theory about Engineer Scott’s relationship with the _Enterprise_ —and feels an illogical hope reassert itself.

_“For our sake the world was created.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warnings: acknowledgement of a very brief, non-explicit moment of sexuality, unwanted arousal, and a non-graphic discussion of attempted self-castration. Please let me know if you have concerns or questions and I can let you know which parts not to read.
> 
> Translations:  
> cascarón=egg-shaped pinatas used on Easter/other parties in Mexico  
> pinche gringo=fucking white boy  
> blanco=white guy  
> miedica=essentially “scaredy-cat”  
> “…Y al mirarte recordé/Que ya todo lo encontré./Tu mano, en mi mano”="... And when I looked at you I remembered/I’d already found everything/Your hand, in my hand..."  
> Dios mio=my God  
> Los Españoles=the Spanish  
> ¿verdad?= really?  
> Abuela=grandma  
> Fue mi papá, ¿recuerdas?=He was my dad, do you remember?  
> Si recuerdo, pero=Yes I remember, but…  
> Estabas dijiendome=You were telling me  
> Si, si=Yes, yes.  
> Mi hijo=my son  
> Esta bien=that’s okay  
> Adios mi hijo, te amo=Goodbye my son, I love you.  
> Te amo también Abuela=I love you too grandma
> 
> Credits: Swimming scene was adapted from the ineffably spectacular movie "Moonlight."  
> 


	11. A Passionate Tale of Forbidden Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations at the end  
> Note: all blueberry science in this chapter is 100% legit  
> This chapter is better than it was originally thanks to [summerofspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerofspock/pseuds/summerofspock) who did a fantastic job beta'ing this chapter.  
> 

**_Part 3:_ **

The last month and a half of Starfleet’s spring term alternates between heavy rain and scorching sun, meteorological mood shifts that are mirrored by the campus temper at large; for students and teachers alike, the approaching close of term signifies both a welcome end to the strictures of the academic year as well as the looming threat of finals and end-of-year grading.

(“It was the best of times, it was the worst—”

“If you finish that sentence, I swear to god Jim—”

“—of times. Agh! Get that hypo away from me you _gringo loco_ —”)

Spock hadn’t needed Jim’s quoted pronouncement to be aware of the campus’ mood. It drips, like a telepathic rain through cracks in walls, collecting in his mind like the storm drain runoff that floods his apartment’s garage and forces him to wade through ankle deep water to retrieve his bicycle one morning.

It is during this hectic, oppressive period that Spock receives his new orders from Captain Pike.

The _Enterprise_ had entered Earth’s subspace hailing range on the 24th of May, and several days afterward, on the 29th he had received a call from Captain Pike. Spock had been in his office at the time, putting the finishing touches on the coding for the latest version of the _Kobayashi Maru_ while Jim had been sitting across from him, swinging his legs and studying for a diplomacy exam.

When Spock had answered the call, Pike’s face had appeared on his monitor and Jim had looked up in surprise.

“Spock! Jim!” Pike had said, beaming with obvious satisfaction that he had predicted their compatibility as friends.

“Captain,” Spock had said, saluting.

“Captain,” Jim had said seriously, sitting up straight and mimicking Spock’s salute, “Permission to be dismissed?”

“Granted,” Pike had said, clearly startled.

Jim had then assembled his belongings and marched solemnly out of the room. His steps, Spock noted, were a mocking 0.76 cm higher than they needed to be.

Pike had gaped after Jim’s retreating back. “Spock,” he’d said turning to Spock, “what did you _do_ to him?”

“I believe it was your original intention that Cadet Kirk would profit by example,” Spock intoned dryly.

“Yes, but,” Pike had craned his neck as though trying to catch a glimpse of Jim by doing so, “he hasn’t, I don’t know, mentioned wanting to switch his major to theoretical physics or a desire to join the logical followers of Surak?”

“I can assure you, Captain, that the Cadet’s appreciation for logic remains woefully unchanged.”

“That’s a relief,” Pike had said more to himself than Spock. Looking back up at the camera he had said “Well, as much as I’d like to hear how _that_ happened,” he’d said gesturing at the door Jim had exited from, “I’m on a tight schedule so I’ll make this quick. The _Enterprise_ will be docking on Earth for repairs and new crew assignments in two weeks. After a quick turn around we’ll be shipping out again on the 15th of June—and I want you to be on board when she does.”

Spock was momentarily silent, and Pike continued.

“My physics department head is being transferred to the _Nyika_ and you’re more than qualified for the job. You’ll be able to manage the whole department, sign off on projects and be part of away missions. The assignment would be for 18 months give or take, so by the time we get back you could be the head science officer with the credentials to be promoted to first officer on your next assignment if things go well.”

Less than a year ago, Spock would not have hesitated to accept Pike’s offer for longer than it took to inquire about lab specifications. For, while he does not find teaching unsatisfying, what he had most desperately wanted when, at 18, he had submitted his application to Starfleet, was to be in space; to escape all planets and borders and expectations and to serve on a starship. A fast starship with a well equipped laboratory.

Now the thought of leaving everything behind gave him pause. Who will teach his courses? Who will pull up weeds at the nature preserve? Who will antagonize Dr. McCoy or discuss the coding of the universal translator with Cadet Uhura?

Who will ask Jim about his nightmares?

“I can give you a week to think about it,” Pike said over the comm.

“No, there is no need,” Spock said at last, feeling calm settle over him for the first time in weeks. “I accept the position. Thank you Captain.”

“Great,” Pike smiles. “Alright, I’ve got to go, but I’ll send you the forms tonight and we’ll be in touch to discuss details this week or next.”

With that, Spock’s screen goes dark and he begins wondering how he will tell Jim.

***

“You’re leaving for a _year and half?_ ” Jim says, his voice rising in pitch and reaching the 2000 Hz characteristic of burning rage.

Reticent as he had been about his change in status, Spock supposes he should have realized Jim would eventually find out.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find out? Were you just going to send me a message from space saying ‘I got a major promotion, oh and by the way, I’ll be out of signal range for the next 1.5 years so live long and prosper, you _fucker_?”

“I will not be out of signal range for the entirety—”

“Answer the fucking question Spock.”

“I was going—” _to tell you Jim, but I had not yet determined how_ , Spock finishes in his head.

But Jim interrupts him before he can say this, growling in frustration, his eyes flashing. “I can’t _believe_ you Spock. You’re leaving _tomorrow._ If I hadn’t noticed you acting _sospechoso_ and decided to come over, I wouldn’t have even found out until you were gone.”

They are standing in Spock’s apartment, his few belongings packed away in storage or already at the port station awaiting transfer to the _Enterprise_. Although he had never filled it with decorations, it’s walls look blank and large with what few things he _had_ put there taken down.

Jim is standing in the middle of what had been his living room, his arms crossed and his eyes filled with a rage that Spock has come to know is not entirely under his control, anger that is not only at him, but an immense and unquenchable rage at all the loss and injustice he has experienced in his 17.83 years of life.

But what Jim had avoided saying was _why_ Jim hadn’t come to his apartment before now (for if he had, he would have deduced that Spock was leaving by the packing boxes alone), for this is the first time Jim has been in Spock’s apartment since the day at the beach, since Spock ran away.

Now all their moments spent here—Jim with his narrowed eyes and back to the wall, Jim crying after his nightmares, Jim’s face when Spock had slammed the door—loom in the silence like baleful ghosts. And Spock doesn’t know what to say, for he has never known how to protect Jim from his own memories.

“You know what, forget it,” Jim says throwing up his hands and moving towards the door, expression dark as he turns away from Spock.

“Jim wait,” Spock says, an arm jerking forward, whether to restrain Jim or to comfort him he doesn’t know.

Jim flinches, disproportionate anger and fear pouring off him in waves. “Just—fuck!—just leave me alone!” he yells, yanking open the door and pulling it closed with a snap behind him.

Spock stands alone in his now silent apartment as the sun filters in through the window, and for the first time in his stay here, it’s cleanliness does not comfort him.

***

The following day at 2100 hours Spock stands in hangar bay 4 in his new uniform, a bustle of red-clad engineers hurrying about, making final preparations before boarding the last shuttle bound for the _Enterprise_ before it leaves orbit.

Clouds of steam and vapor pour from exhaust pipes, narrowing his field of vision and doubling the percent humidity in the enormous, echoing bay.

The last crates are being lugged aboard the shuttle when a red-clad figure comes into focus through the steam.

“Spock,” Jim says breathlessly, his dark eyes churning with emotion, and Spock thinks he is going to be hugged, but Jim stops a few feet away, holding up a _ta’al_.

“I’m going to miss you,” he says. The words are tight with distress, but they make Spock feel relieved.

Spock holds up a _ta’al_ of his own.

 _I will miss you too,_ he thinks.

“I will give you my new contact routing number,” Spock says instead, reaching for his communicator, but Jim holds up a hand to stop him.

“I already have it.”

Spock raises an eyebrow and Jim grins sheepishly.

“I hacked into the system last night.”

“Jim,” Spock says in admonishment, but he cannot help the note of amusement that colors the word.

Jim notices it too and grins wider.

“Last call,” a voice from behind them yells, and the shuttle lights switch on, take-off protocol engaged.

“You’d better go,” Jim says, “you wouldn’t want to be the rotten egg on your first mission.”

“The what?” Spock asks, confused.

Then for the briefest of moments Jim is hugging him before letting go.

“ _Hasta luego,_ ” Jim says, stepping back to watch Spock board the shuttle.

“Goodbye J—” Spock begins, their eyes meeting as the shuttle door slides closed and a klaxon sounds, cutting off the final syllable.

Spock turns away from the door, taking his seat next to the science panel as the interior lights glow yellow. Take-off is counted down and the shuttle taxis forward.

Seconds later the shuttle lifts off, and Spock feels momentarily heavier as normal force increases to compensate for his upward acceleration. The sound of the engines is huge as the shuttle’s turbines expel the massive amounts of air necessary to overcome atmospheric drag. 4.75 minutes later Spock feels the sharp pull of gravity in his stomach as the inertial dampeners attempt to account for fluctuations as they break the tropospheric boundary.

Spock monitors the Thermal Protection System, watching as the heat-flux spikes and then plunges back downward as the shocklayer gas recombines into less reactive molecules on the aeroshell’s teflon walls.

This task complete Spock glances out the window.

And there, docked in the leftmost hangar of Starbase 1, its majestic shape suspended as though by magic in the vastness of outer space, is the _Enterprise_.

***

In one of life’s many small ironies of anti-climax, Spock spends his first few weeks aboard the famed _USS_   _Enterprise,_ flagship of the Federation _,_ doing meaningless paperwork, slightly annoyed at the state the previous physics head had left the department in. Comprising 27 labs and a crew allotment of 78 science officers who report to him, the physics division is the largest and most sprawling of the ships many departments, barring Engineering and Security.

As a consequence of this, Spock quickly becomes glad of his experience as a lab instructor and professor—for although his subordinates are trained science officers and not undisciplined cadets, their combined activities and the sheer influx of the paperwork they generate is staggering at first.

He had been inundated with form after form (many of which were entirely extraneous to his position) until he had located and worked to correct several inefficiencies in the information expressways within his own department and those linking his division to others.

This process continues to be unexpectedly difficult and was stretching on for weeks as it involved discussing his proposed changes both with subordinates who always readily agreed to his instructions (but then proceeded to carry them out incorrectly) as well as with equally ranked officers who were used to things being done in their own (less efficient) ways and were thus intransigent and unresponsive to reason.

Alone in his quarters, worn out after yet another of these verbal sparring matches Spock feels a powerful sense of irony at his own naïve, adolescent beliefs concerning the running of starships.

At the very least, he had lately had a great deal of practice dealing with irrational intransigence (in the form of Leonard McCoy) and gleeful practitioners of illogic (in the form of Jim Kirk).

Spock looks at the blue sticky note he had set on his bookshelf (which had somehow made it onto the _Enterprise_ , despite Spock not remembering having packed it) with a stick figure Vulcan that reads “You’re welcome _Huevón.”_

Looking at it, Spock wonders how Jim, who everlastingly proclaims that he doesn’t believe in no-win scenarios, would deal with this problem.

 _Certainly not as I am attempting to deal with it_ , Spock thinks wryly, _by attempting to correct their logic_.

Spock stands up from his seated position in his chair and straightens his uniform. Exiting his quarters, he proceeds to Recreational Room 4, the one which he believes is most frequently requisitioned by science officers off-duty.

A month of card games, small talk—actually not so unbearable as much of it had involved speculative, if sometimes absurd scientific questions (“Okay, so what do _you_ think would happen if the Earth were made of blueberries?”)—and the occasional chess game later, Spock is able to relax in a smug sense of satisfaction as he and the rest of his department reap the benefits of the newly improved communications system. His former opponents in this matter having become allies once he explained that, _were_ a planet of Earth’s size to be turned into blueberries, the resulting force-pressure balance would quickly turn it into a sphere composed of surfable waves of warm blueberry jam.

 _Illogical_ , he thinks serenely.

***

_A record of excerpted correspondence between contact “James Tiberius Kirk” and “Spock” as logged on Spock’s mobile communications device:_

_Stardate 2252.199_

_James Tiberius Kirk:_ ur exiting earth’s subspace vis com range today, right?

 _Spock:_ That is correct.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ oh no

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ i just realized how bad at txting ur gonna to b

 

_Stardate 2252.215_

_James Tiberius Kirk:_ it’s 4th of july again

_James Tiberius Kirk:_

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/33937221848/in/dateposted-public/)

_James Tiberius Kirk:_ don’t worry i’m pouring it out onto some sad looking flowers

_James Tiberius Kirk:_

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/33937222268/in/dateposted-public/)

_James Tiberius Kirk:_

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/33937222578/in/dateposted-public/)

_James Tiberius Kirk:_ honestly cinco de mayo is better

 _Spock:_ Although holidays are illogical, I accept your human need to celebrate designated days of the year in order to commemorate past events.

 _Spock:_ Additionally I hope the flowers you watered were not _carpobrotus edulis_ , commonly known as “ice plants” as they are invasive.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ you are the worst person i know

_Spock:_

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/33937222988/in/dateposted-public/)

_James Tiberius Kirk:_

_James Tiberius Kirk:_ shit what is that

 _Spock:_ A neutronic wavefront as seen from the _Enterprise_ ’s observation deck.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ shit

 

_Stardate 2252.243_

_James Tiberius Kirk:_ Spock i have a really important question

 _Spock:_ What is it Jim?

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ you know the free donuts they give out at the end of mass?

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ sometimes i think they’re the only reason i go

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ ?does that make me a bad person?

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ like tonight it was 6 and i was like i’m too tired to go, i think i’m going to sleep instead

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ and then i thought…but that donut.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ and then i went

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ honestly, if it meant free _Coca-Cola_ too i might become a priest

James Tiberius Kirk: like if the early catholics had just given out maple bars, history would have been very different

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ literally everyone would be catholic

 _Spock:_ I do not have expertise in this matter however if you are truly worried, perhaps you could take Dr. McCoy’s advice and reduce your refined sugar intake.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ i’m never talking to you again

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ ?hey Spock are you still there?

 

_Stardate 2252.271_

_Spock:_ I have been made aware that it is a human tradition to acknowledge the date of someone’s birth.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ ?are you trying to tell me happy birthday?

 _Spock:_ Yes.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ thanks Spock

 _Spock:_ You are welcome Jim.

 

_Stardate 2252.304_

_Spock:_ Jim, the long-range sensors in one of the physics department labs detected gravitational waves at 0300 hours which altered the length of the detector by two thousandths of the width of a proton. The cruciform oscillation pattern observed had an amplitude of h = 10^−20 and a frequency of f = 0.523 Hz, thus suggesting that a collision of two black holes at approximately 36 solar masses has been detected. However, data is still being processed and there is a possibility that the collision was in fact between two binary neutron stars.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ ...that’s great Spock.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ …why don’t you tell me which one you think it was?

 

_Stardate 2252.331_

_James Tiberius Kirk: [open image attatchement]_

_Spock:_ I presume you are dressed this way for _Día de los Muertos_?

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ yup.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ ?How did you know?

 _Spock:_ It would be difficult to forget the highly disruptive incident last year when Dr. McCoy confiscated your sugar skulls after the day in question.

 _Spock:_ I believe several hall monitors were called.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ Well, i’ve learned my lesson. It won’t happen again this year.

 _Spock:_ Meaning you have decided to take his advice? That is a sign of personal growth.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ no way

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ i’ve found a much better hiding spot.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ _and_ I scared the shit out of Bones when i got home from the memorial procession yesterday night

 _Spock:_ Intentionally?

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ well, it’s not my fault if he’s afraid of the dark

 _Spock:_ What else are you not at fault for?

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ …and someone jumping out from behind a door and yelling “empty-calories” as loud as they can

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ I mean that’s just unreasonable

 _Spock:_ Undoubtedly. 

 

_Stardate 2252.361_

_Spock:_ The Enterprise will be exiting signal range for the next several months beginning at 2200 hours Terran time.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ Okay but if we don’t finish our chess game I’m claiming victory by reason of abscondtion.

 _Spock:_ I do not believe that is a word.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ All i hear are excuses. get those chess pieces moving _vato_.

 _Spock:_ Very well.

 

 _Stardate 2252.361_ , _2130 hours_

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ ?Spock are you there?

 _Spock:_ Yes Jim.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ ok. that’s all I wanted to ask.

 _Spock:_ Goodnight Jim.

 _James Tiberius Kirk:_ Night spock.

 

_Stardate 2252.361, 2201 hours_

_Jim:_ bye Spock.

 

_Stardate 2252.78_

_Spock:_ The _Enterprise_ has re-entered signal range.

 _Jim:_ !you’re not going to believe it!

 _Spock:_ What, precisely, will I not believe?

 _Jim:_ THE POPE CAME TO SAN FRANCISCO

 _Spock:_ That is not a difficult fact to give credence to.

 _Jim:_ AND I TOUCHED HER HAND

 _Jim:_ WITH MY HAND

 _Spock:_ That is also not difficult to believe.

_Jim:_

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/33937221738/in/dateposted-public/)

_Spock:_ Ah

 _Spock:_ That does seem more unlikely.

 _Jim:_ Told ya

 

_Stardate 2252.94_

_Jim:_ if you suddenly stop hearing from me for a while, don’t freak out

 _Spock:_ Jim?

 _Jim:_ like and if maybe you hear that i was say, banished to an icy far off planet for bad behavior, don’t believe a word of it

 _Jim:_ i’m totally innocent

 _Spock:_ What did you do?

 _Jim:_ !like i said, i’ve done nothing!

 _Spock:_ Please inform me of your actions.

 _Jim:_ alright, alright, but the dog’s coming back i swear.

 _Jim:_ And it was mostly scotty’s idea anyway

 _Spock:_ Please clarify.

 _Jim:_ well if i tell you just remember that i have full legal indemnity

 _Jim:_ and if someone asks this conversation never happened

 

_Stardate 2252.101_

_Jim:_ hey spock in that story you told me you never mentioned what happens to the evil jerk with the arrows

 _Spock:_ Tyr-al-tep. Please clarify.

 _Jim:_ Does he get punished?

 _Spock:_ No.

 _Jim:_ hmm. I didn’t think so

 _Spock:_ Jim?

 

_Stardate 2253.103_

_Jim:_ i swear to God if Uhura wasn’t with Chapel I’d think she had a thing for you.

 _Spock:_ A thing?

 _Jim:_ a crush

 _Spock:_ A crush?

 _Jim:_ an infatuation

 _Jim:_ amorously inclined

 _Jim:_ harboring feelings of affection

 _Spock:_ I see. What leads you to believe this?

 _Jim:_ well some of us were watching “like water for chocolate” yesterday and literally every other thing she said was about how your paper on the flaws of the UT’s new language protocol coding is the greatest thing she’s ever read.

 _Spock:_ Curious.

 _Spock:_ I do not understand the link between praise of someone’s published work and supposed amorous intentions.

 _Jim:_ wow you must miss so much of what goes on around you.

 _Spock:_ I have come to understand as much.

 _Spock:_ What is “Like Water for Chocolate”?

 _Jim:_ only an unsurpassed work of magic-realist social commentary

_Jim:_

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/33937221758/in/dateposted-public/)

_Jim:_

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/33937221318/in/dateposted-public/)

_Jim:_  I’ll send you a link.

 _Jim:_ you’ll love it.

 _Spock:_ I am going to infer that your statement is either a well-meaning exaggeration or a blatant falsehood.

 _Jim:_ let’s go with the first one

_Jim:_

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/33937221328/in/dateposted-public/)

 

_Stardate 2253.131_

_Jim:_ ?You’ll be out of signal range for starting tomorrow right?

 _Spock:_ Tht is correct

 _Jim:_ Dios

 _Jim:_ I never thought this would happen

 _Jim:_ !youve learned 2 txt!

 _Spock:_ I apologize.

 _Spock:_ I intended to type “That is correct.”

 _Jim:_  i guess it was 2 good 2 b true

***

Despite _not_ watching the “erotic and delectable” _Like Water for Chocolate_ , Spock _does_ spend some time thinking about his sexuality during his time aboard the _Enterprise_.

It is something he has never done before—if one does not include his disastrous attempts at complete repression as a 17 year old.

It is painful at first, practiced as he has become at never allowing the subject to enter his consciousness, however with time and a month and a half of private conversations with one of the ships therapists (a man named M’Benga who had studied on Vulcan) Spock is able to contemplate the subject at greater length.

As the only half-Vulcan half-Human in existence, Spock had long supposed his situation was unique.

(“Well the genetic and cultural specifics _are_ unique Spock, but they always are. There are many beings out there with similar psychological dispositions towards sexual dysphoria. If by unique you mean alone, here are the statistics that suggest otherwise,” Dr. M’Benga had said.)

Accordingly Spock, in the process of hearing what he had always thought of as peculiar, private and shameful discussed with Dr. M'Benga's well-reasoned, scientific candor, had come to understand that he was not indeed as alone as he had always believed.

The euphoric relief he had felt upon recognizing this fact had been slow to dawn but immense when it had—capable of buoying through week after week of star charting.

And, once he made this initial discovery, many, many more had followed. Throughout the course of his first year in space Spock discovers that he is what humans would call bisexual, that he does _not_ enjoy pornography, but that he _is_ physically capable of masturbating.

His therapist—Spock blushing entirely green—had encouraged him to attempt this procedure in a low-pressure setting as a first step towards reframing his feelings towards his own sexuality.

The results had been mixed. The sensations had been both fascinating and overwhelming, but he could not help but be distracted by feelings and memories of shame.

(“That’s okay,” M’Benga had said. “It’s just like any science experiment. You can’t expect it to work perfectly the first, or even the first one hundred times you try it, but if you continue trying, perhaps adjusting one variable at a time, you _will_ eventually discover something.”)

And so, slowly, Spock had begun to unlearn half a lifetime of believing that his sexuality was somehow wrong because it was not fully Vulcan.

Eventually he had even informed Jim of the fact that he was seeing a therapist, inserting it casually (“I too am attending sessions with a licensed therapist”) into a conversation after Jim had made a joke about his own therapist, who apparently was the one who encouraged him to draw, something Spock had always wondered about.

James Tiberius Kirk:

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/33937221388/in/dateposted-public/)

_Jim:_ well it looks like you were influenced by my stellar example

 _Jim:_ you’re welcome ;)

 _Spock:_ Yes, thank you, I was.

 _Spock:_ I do not believe I would have taken such a step without your influence.

 _Jim:_ Dios spock that was supposed to be a joke

 _Jim:_ sometimes you get unexpectedly profound.

 _Spock:_ I was merely stating a fact.

 _Jim:_ i’m just surprised. you usually hate mushy stuff

 _Jim:_ still waters run deep I guess

 _Spock:_ Mushy stuff?

 _Jim:_ nvrmind i take it back. you’re just indefatigably literal.

 _Jim:_ isn’t indefatigably a great word?

***

_ A summary of autobiographical behavioral statistics compiled during Spock’s first assignment aboard the USS Enterprise:  _

Number of away missions: 39

Number of experiments supervised: 1,197

Number of cosmic anomalies catalogued: 24

Number of new planets visited: 29

Number of new species encountered: 393

Number of acquaintances made with whom he intentionally spends time with off-duty on a regular basis: 4

Number of acquaintances made with whom he unintentionally spends time with off-duty on a regular basis: 27

Number of ship parties attended from start to finish: 0

Number of ship parties attended for a significant length of time: 7

Number of ship parties attended for an insignificant length of time: 14

Number of intentional jokes told: 108

Number of unintentional jokes told: 399

Number of self-administered haircuts performed with a ruler: 10

Number of texts received from Leonard McCoy: 266

Number of texts received from Leonard McCoy that could be classified as complaints: 185

Number of texts received from Leonard McCoy that could be classified as complaints about Jim: 101

Number of texts received from Cadet Uhura: 354

Number of texts received from his mother: 989

Number of texts received from Jim: 2,431

Number of texts sent to Jim: 1,341

Number of chess games played with Jim: 113

Number of therapy sessions attended: 74

Number of attempts at masturbation: 48

Number of successful attempts at masturbation: 28

Number of times he was asked on a date by a fellow crew member: 4

Number of times he was aware of being asked on a date by a fellow crew member: 1

Number of times he was immensely, profoundly embarrassed and provoked similar feelings in fellow crew member: 1

Number of commendations for excellent service in the field: 7

Number of commendations for excellent service in the field under threat of personal danger: 5

Number of promotions received: 1

Number of times listened to _Born this Way_ : more times than Spock is willing to report.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> gringo loco=crazy white dude  
> sospechoso=suspicious  
> Hasta luego=essentially “see you later”
> 
> Note on the number of chapters: I needed to add one extra full-length chapter and a short epilogue to get this sucker done. It's all written now though, so unless someone purloins my computer, the chapter number is fixed at 14 for good. Will publish all the words on napkins if I have to.
> 
> Thanks for reading! When you write me comments I cry tears of pure glitter in the 100% feminist, magical castle in the sky from where I post everything. Also, I swear this story is not an add for Coca-Cola.


	12. So you want to be Jane Eyre do you?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations at the end  
> Thanks to [summerofspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerofspock/pseuds/summerofspock) who did a wonderful job beta'ing this chapter.

The _Enterprise_ makes port at Starbase 1 in the early morning of Friday the 4th of January at 0100 hours.

When Spock’s shuttle breaks atmosphere on re-entry, there is no appreciable change in light between the cold darkness of space and the wet, cloudy darkness of San Francisco's night.

The shuttle docks at hangar bay 2 in the rain and as the door lifts open, Spock takes his first breath of Terran air in 18.94 months. It is full of a wash of aromatic compounds and smells faintly of ozone and geosmin.

 _It smells familiar,_ Spock thinks, the involuntary sense memory triggering his noradrenergic system to assign meaning to this fact:  _Like home_.

Not having informed anyone of his exact arrival date (not having known himself until late that evening) Spock hires an aircar to take him to his new apartment in Starfleet’s staff housing block. The ride is brief but Spock is tired and so it is with a palpable relief that, when he opens his door and orders the lights to 35%, he sees that all his possessions are arranged as he had been informed him they would be, courtesy of Jim, Uhura, McCoy and several others whom Jim had rallied to the task. On the wall opposite the door he even sees an addition—a moderately sized banner made out of some kind of plastic-based fabric that reads “Welcome Home Spock!”

The rooms of his new habitation are cold, so Spock proceeds to his bedroom, gratefully finding his bedrolls in the closet. He unrolls one near the heating vent where he ratchets up the temperature, lying down and closing his eyes. _Welcome home Huevón,_ he thinks drowsily as his mind lapses into sleep.

The next morning when he wakes Spock is too warm, and he shifts out from under his covers, only to feel that he has an erection, which makes him pause.

A year ago, if he had woken in a similar state, Spock would have taken a painfully cold shower, meditated for an extra hour and then spent the rest of the day intermittently punishing himself in the voices of the VSA panel.

This morning, Spock—who had unintentionally slept in as a consequence of space travel related circadian displacement—calmly goes to his bathroom and resolves the situation sans the preponderance of revulsion he had been accustomed to feel for much of his life.

Afterwards he meditates and at 1002 hours, when he has completed the poses of the _Suus Mahna_ and has just finished eating breakfast, he hears his door chime.

“Come in,” Spock says and the door opens, revealing Cadet Uhura and Drs. Chapel and McCoy. Jim is not among them.

Spock finds himself unaccountably disappointed by his absence.

After they have all exchanged greetings and _ta’al’_ s Chapel quickly explains “Jim wanted to be here—he got a message from Pike this morning saying you’d gotten in last night and he’s the one who told us.”

“But he’s taking a test right now,” Uhura says.

“The little shirker wanted to skip it,” McCoy grouses. “But I made him see reason.”

Spock lifts an eyebrow, indicating his skepticism that Jim could ever be made to see reason and a Uhura covers her mouth to muffle her giggle.

“Okay so maybe that’s a _little_ bit of an exaggeration,” McCoy concedes.

“Didn’t you threaten to shave off his hair and eyebrows if he skipped it?” Chapel asks.

“So what if I did? He shouldn’t be so vain. I swear to god, you do _not_ want to know how much time he spends in the bathroom.”

“Actually—” Chapel begins, and Spock gets up to heat more water for tea, listening as the two doctors squabble. He makes eye-contact with Uhura, who rolls her eyes at him and he feels another wave of familiarity crest in the form of oxytocin firing along his axon terminals.

At 1045 the doctors excuse themselves, citing a xenobiology practicum which they are both enrolled in.

Uhura stays for another half an hour, asking him about various parts of his mission and quietly answering his own inquiries after her experiences since they’d parted.

At 1126 he receives a call from his mother who is in a bathrobe and has clearly just woken up.

Her smile when she sees him is wonderful. “Spock!” she says. “I just woke up and I saw Jim’s message—oh it’s so good to see you!”

They talk for 25.67 minutes before a loud knocking interrupts them and his door chime begins buzzing repeatedly.

“I’ll let you get that,” his mother says with a smile, “We’ll talk more later. I love you,” she says, signing off.

“Come in,” Spock says and his door bangs open and there is Jim, his face radiant and his dark eyes lighting up with joy. Without hesitating he darts into the room, leaping at Spock, who, for once, doesn’t attempt to dodge. Jim hugs him for 5.3 seconds and Spock just has time to lift a hand to his shoulder, and to notice that it comes to a different position relative to his own than when he had last been in Jim’s proximity. Then Jim is jumping back, his eyes bright as he looks Spock in the face.

“You look exactly the same _Huevo_ ,” Jim says, grinning. “I guess you were so pale to begin with that even outer space couldn’t make you any whiter.”

“You are 9.65 centimeters taller than when I last saw you,” Spock says.

And he is. At 5’ 10.81,’’ Jim can easily look him in the eye without tilting his chin, something he had never previously managed.

What Spock doesn’t comment on are the several other changes in Jim’s physical appearance; the way his shoulders have broadened, the way his arms and chest are now defined by strong lines of muscle that he had lacked as an adolescent, the way his brown skin is littered with freckles and sunspots instead of teenage acne.

“I’m still shorter than you,” Jim says, his eyebrows furrowing.

“3.36 inches that I am sure you will never forgive me for,” Spock says, the corners of his mouth twitching.

“Oh my gosh, you smug bastard,” Jim says with mock fury. “I can’t believe you just said that. You know if it hadn’t been for the Spanish—”

“It is good to see you Jim,” Spock says, interrupting him before he can launch out on one of his unscientific polemics.

Jim’s eyes widen in a 0.8 second microexpression of surprise as he looks at Spock, his grin turning into a soft smile.

“It’s good to see you too _Huevón_. 19 months was too long,” Jim says, his smile shifting back into a grin. “Especially when you were on my ship without me.”

“Your ship?” Spock asks, confused.

“Uh huh,” Jim says in a tone that suggests Spock shouldn’t need to ask. “The _Enterprise_ of course. I’m going to be her captain someday.”

“I see. And how do you presume to know that?”

Here Jim’s grin stretches into a smirk. “How do you always know what time it is Spock?”

***

The spring semester (during which Spock intends to teach while the _Enterprise_ undergoes a refit) starts on the Tuesday after he arrives, and as a consequence, Spock’s next few days are extremely busy as he prepares for the first day of classes.

This semester he has been slated to teach two introductory physics lectures and labs, and an upper level course entitled “Thermodynamic Systems of Outer Space,” as well as having to review applications from potential lab TA’s along with those of the upper-class students who had applied to work in one of his personal labs (he has now been granted three more in addition to laboratory 309).

He is made so busy adjusting to all these changes that it is several weeks before he has time to consider the depth to which the sudden changes in Jim have affected him.

When Spock had left, Jim had been 18 almost 19, slightly below average height and small with little obvious muscle, his brown eyes narrow and quick with suspicion. It had been easy then to think of Jim as a teenager, someone in need of guidance and Spock was his mentor and friend. Now, at almost 21, Jim is—

Jim is beautiful.

Despite several futile attempts to deny this, Spock cannot help being aware of this fact any more than he can help knowing why the Terran sky is blue or that the square root of two is an irrational number.

Jim is beautiful, and Spock?

Spock is in love with him.

Spock realizes it one day when they are walking across campus together under the low light of evening. Jim is laughing at something or nothing at all and between one second and the next Spock is struck with this sudden and unshakable knowledge.

He had said nothing and they had kept walking, Spock reeling internally with the weight of this new awareness.

It is a fact, he realizes on further reflection, that must have been true for longer (perhaps much longer) than he has been capable of admitting it to himself.

When he tries to remember when it was he had started thinking of Jim an adult instead of a teenager, he cannot fix the exact moment. Was it when Jim followed him outside and into his own mind, pulling him out of his spiraling panic and shame? Was it when Jim had taught him how to swim? Or when he had comforted his grandmother on her sickbed?

Certainly an indefinable _something_ had shifted in their relationship after that day at the beach when their physical contact had inadvertently affected him. Whether it had just been an added circumspection in their interactions or something more complex, they had been more careful around one another after that day.

On seeing Jim now though, after so long apart and with all material hindrances suddenly removed, Spock can no longer deny that he is in love with Jim Kirk and has been for a quite some time.

It is around this juncture that Spock begins to understand two further things. The first is that he is not the only one who has noticed these physical changes in Jim and responded to them. The second is what should have been the obvious—but somehow it's just embarrassing—fact that Jim is not to him what he is to everyone else.

Spock gets an accidental glimpse into how others see Jim after class in the halls one day, courtesy of his unfortunately excellent Vulcan hearing.

“I mean Kirk’s hot as hell—like have you _seen_ his eyes? Or that _ass?_ —but he’s a bit of a flirt right?” he hears a Vidiian student whisper to a fellow cadet, her ocelli flushing sapphire yellow.  

“A _bit_ of a flirt?” responds the human, their voice lifting slightly in incredulity. “I’ve heard he’s slept with half the beings on campus. I don’t think he’s ever been with the same person twice, alien or human.”

The Vidiian makes a soft cooing noise. “Come on, you know that’s an exaggeration. And anyway, at least that means you know he’s not xenophobic—that happened to me one time, did I ever tell you?” the Vidiian says, as the two turn off into a different corridor, leaving Spock with his ears ringing, norepinephrine flooding his body and like a bucket of cold water.

Another incident, of an entirely different, much more serious nature, confirms that the conversation he had overheard was not entirely idle gossip. A month into the spring semester, a website had been published displaying photographs of cadets in a variety of situations ranging from benign to scandalous and—in several cases—pornographic.

Thanks to his long-standing job of programing the _Kobayashi Maru_ , Spock had been one of the professors enlisted to help take down the photos and track down the perpetrators responsible for the website.

In the end, the students primarily responsible had been expelled while the handful of other cadets who had unknowingly provided the photographs received strict punishments for careless distribution of data—but not before Spock had to scroll through photo after photo of Jim, pressed against walls or spread out on couches, entwined with various humans and aliens, his mouth on theirs.

While thankfully none of the photos of Jim had been particularly pornographic, each one had been permanently etched into his memory.

While it had been very upsetting for Spock, Jim had responded to the incident with his usual humor, not seeming at all disturbed that photographs of himself in such intimate moments had been displayed publicly, (“Did you hear about what happened Spock? I’m famous!”) an attitude which had the effect of confirming Spock’s decision not to inform Jim of his feelings.

While Spock has long known that he and Jim held drastically divergent views of long-term romantic relationships (“I mean they would be okay except for the long-term part, and the romance part, and the relationship part.”) and physical intimacy (“I don’t get why people get so clingy—what’s the big deal? Sex is sex, it doesn’t have to mean anything.”) seeing photo after photo substantiating this difference, and hearing Jim blithely brush it off as nothing had forced Spock to understand that informing Jim of his feelings would only cause unnecessary pain and awkwardness in their relationship.

For Vulcans, unlike most known species, mate for life, and although Spock has learned to accept his hybrid sexuality (namely that it exists), he does not wish to engage in casual physical affection of the kind that Jim seems to enjoy to the exclusion of the more lasting bonds that Spock was raised to expect from a relationship.

So Spock decides to accept his feelings, controlling them as best he can so as not to upset the delicate balance of he and Jim’s friendship. A friendship which is ultimately worth much more to him than whatever romantic daydreams he might entertain.

***

It is on a Thursday in late February that, despite Spock’s efforts, this delicate balance is at last disturbed.

“Oh _¡mierda!”_ Jim says suddenly, looking up from his comm screen and out Spock’s office window at the steadily falling rain. “Bones’ afternoon class got canceled and he has the car.”

Jim looks at Spock, “Hey, your apartment’s closer—do you mind if I come over?” he asks, looking back at his comm screen and typing furiously.

Jim’s apartment, which he shares with McCoy, Sulu and Chekov (an intelligent Russian student enrolled in Spock’s advanced thermodynamics class), is a 15 minute walk (or a 5 minute run according to Jim) from Starfleet’s campus.

“I’ll make dinner,” Jim adds persuasively.

Spock, who had lately taken to avoiding being alone with Jim in non-public settings, has no ready excuse. Unable to think of one and before he hesitates long enough enough to draw questions, he acquiesces, hoping only that the rain will stop in time for Jim to change his mind and go to his own apartment.

The rain does not stop. In fact it only grows stronger, so that by 1830 hours, when he and Jim pack their bags, it is railing against the double-paned windows of Science Building A, clattering loudly as it strikes the glass.

“Race you,” Jim says as he pushes open the outside door into the darkness, taking off along the well lit path that leads to the staff housing complex.

Spock, who had been half expecting such a challenge and has no fear of being seen in this weather, quickly overtakes him, reaching the door to his apartment in 25.9 seconds.

Jim joins him 3.4 seconds later, pulling around the corner from the exterior staircase and laughing as he shakes the water from his hair.

Once inside they take off their wet shoes and socks on the mat and place them to dry in Spock’s shoe rack. Jim rolls up his pants several times and takes off his cadet red overshirt and hangs it on a hook. Spock orders the lights to 70% and they come on with a small sound of static.

“ _Dios_ , it’s raining hard out there,” Jim says glancing out the window. “I saw in the forecast that there’s going to be lightning and thunder later.”

Spock goes to his room to change and Jim saunters into the kitchen, for once apparently pleased enough with the contents of Spock’s refrigerator not to comment on them. When Spock comes back out of his room wearing a dry pair of pants and shirt, Jim is already chopping vegetables and listening to the radio (hip hop and reggaeton) whose broadcast is slightly marred by the periodic, buzzing of rain fade, indicating that the storm had entered the Fresnel zone.

“You still have some _masa_ left over from the last time I was here,” Jim is saying as he pours some into a bowl and adds water, kneading it into a ball with practiced motions before separating it into smaller pieces which he shapes into spheres and begins pressing flat under a plate.

Spock puts on hot water for tea and soon the smell of maize fills the apartment as Jim begins flipping the tortillas on a pan, wrapping the cooked ones in a towel to keep them warm.

16.32 minutes later when they sit down with assembled vegetable tacos and cups of _cha’al_ tea, Jim, as always, mutters a prayer before turning his attention to his food.

“My mom used to make this joke,” Jim begins, his voice for once not losing its light-hearted cadence as he mentions his dead mother, “about how you have to bow to a taco if you want to eat it,” Jim says bowing his head to the side in order to take a bite, and thus demonstrating his point. Spock has to look away so as to avoid fixating on the movement of Jim’s tanned throat as he swallows.

“I guess Vulcans are the only ones who don’t have to bow to tacos though,” Jim continues, as Spock begins to eat his with a knife and fork.

For whatever reason, Spock’s Vulcan-learned habit of never using his hands to eat is one of the few subjects Jim never makes fun of him for.

When they are done and the dishes are washed, they sit on Spock’s couch, Jim working through some assigned reading while Spock finishes grading a last of a round of tests on his PADD.

At 9:21 it is still raining hard and Jim pulls his sketchpad out of his backpack and begins doodling. Several minutes later at 9:30 Spock shuts off his PADD and glances at Jim, who’s brow is slightly furrowed in concentration as he draws. It is a sight he has seen many times before, but now it makes his face warm so he quickly gets up and moves towards his room to meditate.

“Hey Spock do you mind if I sleep over?” Jim asks without looking up from his sketchpad as Spock had known he would.

Jim has spent the night at his apartment many times before so why—for Jim at least—should their situation have changed enough that such a question would be anything other than routine?

Unable to lie and say he does not mind, Spock simply says, “You may,” and proceeds towards his bedroom in an attempt to purge all images of Jim’s physical body from his mind.

32 unsuccessful minutes later when he surfaces from his rather distracted attempt at meditation, Spock re-enters the living room and sees that Jim is still seated on the couch, drawing.

“I was just making more tea, do you want some?” Jim asks, standing up to retrieve the kettle from where it has begun to whistle on the stove.

Spock, who after his poor bout of meditation does indeed want tea nods, sitting on the couch as Jim goes to the kitchen to refill his own cup and to pour some for Spock.

Jim hands him his cup, but doesn’t sit down. When Spock looks into his face he sees that he is biting his lip.

“Do you want to see some?” Jim asks, gesturing to his sketchbook.

Spock is momentarily surprised out of his preoccupied thoughts. Jim is usually very secretive about his drawings. What Spock _has_ seen have only been two accidental glimpses, caught over Jim’s shoulder in passing. Jim has never asked him if he would like to see them before.

So it is that—not without a sense of foreboding—Spock feels his ever-present curiosity erode his sense of caution and he nods up at Jim.

Jim picks up his sketchpad, sitting on the couch next to Spock, so close that their thighs are almost touching and sets the book on Spock’s lap.

When Jim opens it, the first few images are of buildings, trees, inanimate objects and a few self-portraits, some rendered realistically and some stylized and cartoonish. Jim flips past these without a word, barely giving Spock time to take them in.

Then there are Jim’s nightmares. The bearded man with wings, turning into a bird as he escapes into the night; a _lik’ichiri_ , gaunt and white faced; children sleeping as monsters creep closer; the blue eyes of the other Jim, his fair face smeared with blood.

“That’s not what I want you to see,” Jim says, flipping through these images too.

He slows down at last when he reaches drawings of space: planets and constellations, the Dark Rift where the Milky-Way becomes non luminous and others that cannot be recreations of what Jim has seen, for they are not views of Earth.

“It’s what I imagine the view from a starship would look like. The one to Tarsus didn’t have any windows,” Jim explains.

Jim flips a page and Spock is surprised to see his own face looking back at him, dressed in his uniform, his expression stern.

On the next page is another image of himself, this time from farther back, his hands clasped behind his back as he looks out a window.

“I missed you,” Jim says quietly, and Spock is silent, not knowing what to say.

Jim turns a page and a new, more complicated drawing appears.

Spock examines it for a moment before he asks, slightly uncertain “Is that _Ulam_ and _Tel-alep_?”

“Yeah, I really like that story,” Jim murmurs, and Spock looks back at the two figures, the first _T’hy’la—_ one of whom is clasping his hands over blind eyes while the other, the one with an arrow piercing their side, turns into the moon.

        

Jim flips the page, his thigh brushing Spock’s as he does so. On the next page _Tel-alep_ and _Ulam_ are circling each other surrounded by blackness, embracing in the middle of the page.  

“Spock, I really like—” Jim begins before reaching up.

And then he is turning Spock’s face to his own and kissing him.

For a few seconds all Spock feels is the warm press of Jim’s lips against his own, that it feels so _good_ , his mind flooding with dopamine, like what Spock has been wanting for so—

And then his conscious mind reasserts itself and Spock puts his hands on Jim’s chest and pushes him firmly away. As he does he feels Jim’s heart rate elevated through the left side of his chest, can hear his quick breathing and he watches his dark, startled eyes and the soft movement of his lips—

“No Jim,” he says and the words weigh a thousand tons each.

Jim’s eyes meet his, wide and searching and Spock continues.

“You and I have irreconcilably different understandings of physical and romantic intimacy,” he says, although every part of him wants him to shut up, to throw caution to the winds and keep kissing Jim like all his doubts are meaningless, like everything else is meaningless.

 _Nothing is meaningless_ , Spock reminds himself. Decisions are for sane hours, when reason and logic prevail, not for moments such as these when his emotions have risen up and might tear him into a thousand different pieces, scattering down different paths in the wind.

“Considering this fact, continuing would be unwise. If you believe otherwise then I will hear what you have to say,” Spock says, half-surprised by how calm he sounds.

But Jim for once, says nothing as he looks down, his face flushing and he puts a hand over his mouth as though burned.

“I see,” Spock says, feeling his last, irrational hope that Jim would argue with him, would convince him that he was wrong, dwindle under the weight of Jim’s silence. “While I have no control over your behavior towards others, you will not treat me in this way,” he says with finality.

Jim looks up, his hand still covering his mouth. It falls away as he nods, getting up and walking towards the door. Outside the first flash of lightning turns the sky momentarily light.

“Jim it is unnecessary for you to leave at this time,” Spock says, his words punctuated by a roll of thunder. “I will sleep in my office, and you can remain here.” But Jim shakes his head, pulling on his overshirt and pushing his feet into his still-wet shoes.

“It’s fine,” Jim says in an almost unrecognizable voice, totally empty of its usual animation. “I’ll be fast,” he says before opening the door and stepping out into the rain.

Spock goes to the door, to do what, he doesn’t know, and by the time he opens it, Jim is nowhere to be seen.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/32915886787/in/dateposted-public/)

***

The following morning on Friday the 19th day of February, Stardate 2253.59 Spock does not wake up at 0500 when the sky is still dark with night. He does not meditate or assume the _ikapirak_ position in which the head is bowed. He does not practice the _Suus Mahna_ as he has done every day of his 4.13 years of living on Earth.

Spock does none of these things for Spock does not sleep at all.

Instead he spends the horrible night alternately tossing and turning on his mat and pacing his bedroom, his living room, and even once, the sidewalk outside his house, which was unsheltered from the storm.

The wind had screamed in his ears and the rain had stung his face, but for a few blissful moments the shock had drowned out his own desperate, howling loss and pain ( _unlovable, not suited, unfit, unworthy, monster, freak, unnatural, disadvantaged, broken, no place for you_ ).

Once, he had started awake from one of his brief spells of half-sleep, convinced that instead of a Terran strom the rain had become a Vulcan monsoon, swelling the sea into a wave that washed everything off the face of the Earth, pulling him from his apartment and depositing him in a land swept clean, barren of its former structures and inhabitants.

 _Meaningless_ , the wind had whispered in the mocking voice of _Tyr-al-tep_ the Unforgiver. _Your choice was meaningless_.

When he woke he was almost surprised to find that he was still in his own room and that he was alive and dry.

This realization was less comforting than one might suppose.

***

The next several months are some of the worst of Spock’s life, as bad as when he was 10 and hated the whole world, or when he was 17 and hated himself, or again when he was 18 and had left Vulcan in the knowledge that it meant he and his father might never speak again.

Now, Jim and he are not speaking, for reasons that Spock does not fully understand. He wants to ask Jim why, but every time he imagines himself attempting to find him, to ask him to explain why he is avoiding him, he comes up against the same unshakable knowledge that if Jim _had_ wanted to explain he would have done so when Spock asked him.

For Jim had never before missed an opportunity to explain to Spock exactly why he was wrong about something before.

The irony is that his life is much the same as it was before he had met Jim—better even, for he still spends time with Uhura (“You’ve got moon eyes Spock,” _That is more accurate than you could possibly know_ ) and unexpectedly, McCoy (“I don’t know what happened between you two and I don’t care. You’re both infants as far as I’m concerned.”)—and yet all that before had been comforting and familiar and routine is now as barren and lifeless as his vision of Earth after a flood.

It had always been that way he supposed. He had simply never realized it before Jim.

With nothing else to do though, he throws himself into his work, taking on a extra lab sections, scheduling extra office hours and spending all his free time in his laboratories, signing off on project after project until every single time slot in all four is filled from early in the morning to late at night.

He labors too on the _Kobayashi Maru_ , stripping it down and imbuing each line of code with the succinct inevitability intrinsic to all math which humans illogically call elegant or even beautiful. He writes layer after layer of security, constructing unassailable barriers and ensuring that each scenario of defeat and loss is truly as inescapable and unbeatable as life itself.

Sometimes, late at night when he has nothing but his thoughts to distract him, Spock wonders whether he had not made a mistake—whether it would not have been better to have simply followed Jim’s lead as he so often had before, to have done whatever Jim wanted, ignoring the inevitable consequences. He wonders whether things would have been different, whether they could have remained friends, whether—

But he knows those thoughts are nothing but self-deception. He could not have been with Jim only to have it mean nothing afterwards.

This thought—that he had not betrayed what he felt by treating it as though it meant nothing—was the only consideration that gave him any comfort, cold though it was.

It is very strange, he reflects, for a Vulcan to insist so forcefully on the importance of a feeling. Many might consider it ironic, illogical, or even out of character, but Spock knows now what a life built only on the rules of logic is: barren and cold, without any breathless wonder or mysterious beauty.

If such is to be his life, (and it will be, confirmed as it had been that he was not suited to such love), at least he did not perjure or defile this one truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> ¡mierda!=shit!


	13. You’re no Kobayashi Maru

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations at the end  
> Thanks again to [summerofspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerofspock/pseuds/summerofspock) who did a fantastico job beta'ing this chapter.

The rest of February, March and most of April pass in this way; with Spock miserable and his apartment spotlessly clean, believing that this is what his life will be from now on.

And so it is very unexpected, to say the least, when on a bright spring day in late April, he receives word that a cadet has beaten the _Kobayashi Maru_.

When the administrator who has come to his office tells him this, shock hits in cold twinges of norepinephrine along his nerve endings that jolts his senses and makes it so he has to ask the administrator to repeat the question.

“I _said_ none of us know how it happened, sir. The _Kobayashi Maru_ is supposed to be unbeatable.”

 _It_ **_is_ ** _unbeatable,_ Spock thinks.

“So how did a kid beat your test?” the administrator asks, looking as lost as Spock feels.

“I do not know,” Spock says, because he doesn’t.

The test administrator mumbles something and Spock asks “What is the identity of the cadet?” a suspicion already twisting through his thoughts, his voice steady even as his mind whirls through the coding, all the while _knowing_ that it is unflawed and unassailable.

“James T. Kirk, sir,” the test administrator responds, and Spock, for one ridiculous split second feels like laughing.

 _“_ _Never let someone else make the rules,_ _Güero_ _. You had all the advantages and I still won,”_ a voice echoes in his mind _._  

Spock does not laugh however. He quells the instinct ruthlessly and asks his next question.

“Where is he now?"

“What?” the administrator asks, startled.

“Where is he now?” Spock asks again, somewhat impatiently.

“Who?”

“The cadet,” Spock clarifies.

“I don’t know sir. I came directly from the simulation room.”

“Was he still there when you left?” Spock asks.

The administrator thinks for a drawn out moment. “Yes sir, he was.”

“Very well,” Spock says, getting up and walking briskly out the door and down the hall.

The administrator, clearly frazzled follows him asking “Do you want to press charges? For academic dishonesty?” his voice a high pitched squeak.

Spock, showing mercy despite his haste, slows his step and turns back to where the administrator stands and says “Not at this time. Thank you for your information, Ensign. I will inform you of my decision on the proceedings at a later time,” before turning away and striding back off down the corridor.

When he arrives at the testing room 5.871 minutes later, the simulation well is empty, as he suspected it might be. He turns back down the corridor, already planning where to search next when, by chance, his gaze lands on a glass door off to the side.

And there is Jim, sitting on the ground in a deserted resource room, looking at his hands.

Spock turns sharply to the left, and Jim looks up—perhaps hearing his approach—and their gazes meet through the glass door.

Jim scrambles to his feet as Spock pushes into the room without pausing, glad that he has caught Jim at least somewhat off his guard.

“Why did you do it?” Spock asks in a controlled voice before Jim has a chance to speak.

Jim’s mouth curls into a cruel sneer. “You were all over that code. It was so _logical_ ,” he says, spitting the last word as though it tasted bitter. “I saw your stupid self in every single fucking line and it made me want to scream my fucking head off—watching you write a novel on every twisted shitty thing you think about yourself all in the guise of a simulation—like you’re the computer you always say you’re _not,_ ” Jim says, his eyes flashing with hatred. “Is _that_ _really_ how you see yourself?”

“I do not understand you,” Spock says, still controlled, because none of Jim's words make sense.

The sound Jim makes is somewhere between a snarl and a laugh. “That’s the _fucking_ point!” he almost yells. “You _never_ understand what’s actually happening. Do you really think you’re a fucking no-win scenario? That you’re every bad thing that could ever go wrong?” Here Jim looks enraged. “Well you know what? Fuck that Spock, and fuck you too.”

At these words, uttered by _Jim_ in that tone, something snaps inside Spock and he feels his voice lifting for the first time in _years_ , since he was an angry child, yelling as he hit the boy who had insulted his mother.

“What makes you think it is acceptable to say that to me?" he asks, advancing. "Do you think that because I am Vulcan that I am incapable of feeling? That I do not care what you say to me?” Spock says, his voice rising and sharpening with each question, saying what he has wanted to say for the past three months—and maybe his entire life.

“ _I am not a machine_. I have as much of a heart as you have and as much _right_ to be treated with respect—to not have my _feelings_ for you treated as though they do not exist.”

Spock suddenly realizes how close they have become, that in his anger he broken the invisible barrier between them, and they are breathing each other’s air.

He looks down the 12 cm into Jim’s face and hates how Jim is beautiful even now, his face twisted with anger.

“And if I was fully human I would make it as hard for you to leave me as it is for me to leave you. I would hurt you as much as you have hurt me,” Spock gasps as his heart twists in pain.

Jim’s breath is hot on his lips as he says “You already have, you _estupido_ fucking _huevo_ ,” grabbing the back of Spock’s neck and kissing him on the mouth.

Spock struggles for a moment before pushing him roughly away. Jim stumbles slightly, catching himself on a table.

“You are not _listening to me_ ,” Spock says, his anger swelling impossibly higher, “I will _not_ be another of your dalliances to be cast aside. It is unacceptable.”

“Spock, you are so incredibly thick it’s insane,” Jim says, breathing hard. “I’m trying to tell you that _I love you!_ ” he says, yelling the last three words in exasperation.

Spock is silent for a moment, the words reverberating through him, and then he is angrier than ever.

“How _dare_ you say that to me in order to justify what you have done? I have told you that I love _you_ and you have the audacity to use those words against me simply to manipulate me into acting as you wish—just as you always do. I will _not_ allow you to use me in such a way.”

“Oh my fucking—” Jim says, yanking Spock’s hand to his face. He roughly jams Spock’s fingers into his meld points, and before Spock can react angrily, before he can jerk away, he feels a rush of inexplicable feeling from Jim and, when a moment later Jim begins speaking he can feel the truth of every word even as he can see it shining in Jim’s eyes.

“Spock you always say the wrong things and you’re clueless as _fuck_ —case in point—” he says with a frustrated gesture, “but Spock, every _single thing you do is good_.”

Jim closes his eyes for a moment and Spock gets a flash of memory—people running, tearing into each other, the world disintegrating in hunger and pain—before it’s over and he’s back in the resource room with Jim.

“You don’t understand what that means but I do,” Jim continues, opening his eyes. “You’re like the eye of a fucking hurricane and when everyone else including me is selfish or stupid or shitty, you’re not. You’re just _pure,"_ he says with an almost pained expression. "And you’re not just good because it’s _easy_ for you or because someone told you to be. You do it because people were cruel to you and you’re always trying to protect the people around you from that. You don’t know how many times you saved my life. You think I’m lying when I say I love you?” And here Jim presses Spock’s hand more firmly to his own face. “How could I _not_ love you Spock?”

It is too much all at once and Spock feels his mind swim—drowning in too many inputs.

“Jim. I—I do not understand. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

Here an expression of shame flashes across Jim’s face even as Spock feels the emotion burn through him, second-hand through their contact, and he withdraws his hand as though scalded.

Jim looks down, not meeting his eyes. “I—I’m sorry. I should have, but that night when I kissed you, I did it without thinking and when you said we have different views of,” here Jim’s face contorts slightly, “of _relationships_ , I knew you were right, and I—” here Jim breaks off, taking a breath. “The point is I _have_ thought about it now and I need you to know that all those people I kissed—I was just trying to get over you because you were gone, and I was lonely and I didn’t think that someone like you could want someone like me.”

Spock is still struck dumb and reeling but when Jim says this he gathers what remains of his tattered logic to respond, putting together the facts he has received and attempting to focus on what is most important.

“Jim it appears that we have been speaking at cross-purposes. Would you be willing to enter into a romantic relationship with me with the goal of exclusive long-term commitment?”

Spock watches Jim’s face where his quavering mouth is being tugged into a slow smile.

“That was romantic as shit,” Jim says. “You made it sound like a business proposition,” he says, his smile growing wider. “ _Claro que si_.”

When Jim opens his mouth to explain what that means Spock cuts him off.

“ _Ya sé lo que eso significa_ _Jim_. Spanish is not as hard to learn as as all three dialects of Golic.”

Jim, for once, is shocked into silence.

***

They stay in the resource room talking for a long time afterwards.

Their words halting and unpracticed, but eventually they say everything that needs to be said. 

When this is over, they stumble together into the bright spring sunlight outside, both feeling delicate and fragile—like beings newly made from glass, and careful in the wake of their recent, painful creation—with only one another to understand what they have just become.

***

They had, in the course of their initial, stumbling conversation, agreed that they should tell as few people as possible about their relationship as Spock was a professor and Jim was still a cadet—and would be for the next month and a half until graduation—and although Jim had never taken any of Spock’s classes and there was therefore no technical academic conflict of interest, a relationship between a professor and a cadet would always raise eyebrows.

It was impossible not to tell _anyone_ however, and so Jim had volunteered to inform McCoy (“Are you kidding? I get to see Bone’s face when I brag about how I bagged the best piece of ass on campus, and then again when I tell him it’s you. He’ll fucking die, I can’t wait.”) while Spock had taken it upon himself to inform Uhura, (who was discreet enough not to tell anyone besides Dr. Chapel, and who would probably figure it out anyway) as well as his mother—whom he had been avoiding for the majority of his and Jim’s estrangement, much to his chagrin.

“Spock!” his mother says, picking up his call before he has time to sit in his chair. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for ages, but you haven’t been answering my calls!” her voice a mixture of anger, worry and relief. “Are you alright? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing is wrong Mother, I am well,” he reassures her before saying “I apologize for my poor communication over the last eight weeks. I was preoccupied but this does not excuse my behavior.”

“Spock, you know I’ll always love you but you can’t disappear on me like that. We—your father and I were worried,” she says, her voice wavering as she mentions Sarek.

“Again I apologize for my lack of consideration. The matter I was preoccupied with was of a personal nature and I did not know how to communicate this to you as it concerned emotions which I did not fully understand at the time.”

“Alright Spock,” she says nodding, “Can you tell me now?”

“Jim and I have decided to enter a romantic relationship,” Spock says as he had practiced.

Amanda’s mouth opens and she blinks several times before saying “Spock that’s—that’s wonderful. I don’t know what to say. I _thought_ this might happen—but he’s younger than you isn’t he? And he’s very, very human.”

“I believe both were true of you when you married my father,” Spock says, having expected this.

“And I’m saying the same things my mother said to me,” she says, smiling slightly. “It’s just so much to take in after not knowing what was going on.”

Spock spends the next 5.78 minutes apologizing and attempting to explain what had occurred in the last two months.

“I see,” she says at last. “Well at least you’ll know what to expect. Unlike your father and I, you have at least some idea of what an interspecies relationship might entail. You’ll be going into this with your eyes open.”

“It would be illogical to close them,” Spock says, raising an eyebrow.

“Well, _now_ that we’re on the subject of keeping eyes open, have you told him about _pon farr_ yet? You know it’s never too soon to—”

“Mother, please—”

“And what does he know about telepathic bonds?” she goes on, completely ignoring his horrified expression. “Actually why don’t I just call him and—”

“ _Mother_ ,” Spock cuts in at last, “that will be unnecessary at this time. While I am sure he would benefit from your... _knowledge_ of this matter,” Spock says, keeping his mind perfectly blank, “as he and I do not yet know how long our relationship may last, it would be illogical to discuss such...extreme outcomes.”

“Alright honey, you’re probably right, but you know if he breaks your heart I’ll rip him a new one,” she says looking momentarily fierce. “Oh and honey, the same goes for you if you break _his_ heart. I like Jim a lot.”

Spock, unsure whether to be comforted of frightened ends the call shortly there after once they have finalized plans for him to visit her on Vulcan for Passover.

***

On the Friday after his brief trip to Vulcan (which Jim had been too busy to join), Jim and Spock leave his office at 1835 hours and walk down the pathway that leads around Science Building A and out into San Francisco proper towards the Mission District where Jim and McCoy’s apartment is located near Spock's former residence.

It is a walk that they have taken many times before, but never before as a couple. They are both keenly aware of this fact; Jim responding to his awareness with occasional smirks and nudges while Spock maintains their usual distance, keeping his humming feelings to himself.

As they walk through the cooling streets, Jim leads them on a slightly meandering route, perhaps trying to enjoy the evening sunshine that illuminates the city, turning its high streets into geometric shadows and lines of light.

Jim eventually leads them through Balmy Alley, it’s walls twisting and interlocking with muraled images.

As they walk Jim touches some of them, his hand brushing against their bright swirls of color.

Together they stop in front of the original mural, a very, very old painting made by Maria Galivez and the children of a local child-care center—the very first muralists to paint here in 1972.

It’s paint had been restored several times since then, as had that of many of the works here, giving it perceptible layers of age.

Spock watches as Jim wanders away a few steps to lay his hand on an image of San Óscar Romero, one of Jim’s favorite saints.

While he is still awe-struck and reeling at their change in relationship, the rational part of Spock’s mind has been experiencing troubling doubts about Jim’s mental state.

While it is certainly like Jim not to answer questions directly and to misrepresent himself when he can, Spock had been troubled, both Jim’s silence on that night in February when Spock had almost begged for an explanation, and again when, during their confrontation the week before Spock had asked him to explain himself a second time and had likewise been unanswered.

But most especially Spock is worried by the profound sense of shame he had felt, burning in Jim’s mind during their partial meld.

Jim glances over his shoulder at him and flashes him a grin.

“See something you like?” he asks with an arch expression.

“As these are some of the most important remaining examples of indigenous Central American public art—or indeed 20th century murals in general not destroyed in the Eugenics War or World War III—I do indeed find many of the paintings here fascinating,” Spock responds ingenuously.

“Egghead,” Jim mutters, rolling his eyes before walking further down the alley.

“This one’s new,” Jim says, gesturing to some graffiti at the alley’s exit which Spock pauses to read.

It proclaims ironically _“No pintar. Propiedad privada.”_

Several hours later, after they have reached Jim’s apartment (which they have to themselves as McCoy is spending the weekend with his daughter and Sulu and Chekov are at a party) and made dinner (“Sometimes I think you only stay with me for the food,” Jim had accused as Spock innocently put a spoonful of _menudo_ in his mouth, and then another, and another—because Jim’s accusation _was_ incorrect but the soup was also very good) they do the dishes, the air between them buzzing with an unspoken tension that has been building since they entered the apartment and found themselves alone.

Accordingly, after the dishes are washed and put away they retreat to Jim’s bedroom for the ostensible purpose of allowing Spock to see it for the first time.

As Spock truly is curious, he does at first examine Jim’s bookshelf and the small file of saints cards he has stuck to his wall ( _San Ó_ _scar Romero, St. Jude, St. Francis, Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe_ ).

Several minutes later however, he grows distracted by Jim’s presence in such unusually private quarters, and apparently the feeling is mutual for they begin kissing shortly there after.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/47924748818/in/dateposted-public/)

Jim’s mouth, Spock discovers, is soft and intoxicating and he quickly grows disoriented by the many sources of sensory input—Jim swallowing his gasps and sucking hard on his lower lip, his pupils wide, almost eclipsing their usual brown.

Somehow, without Spock being entirely conscious of how, they end up on Jim’s bed.

“You can fuck me if you want,” Jim says, looking up at Spock who is half-kneeling, half-lying over him.

Spock's face goes instantly hot, but through their contact, he feels an echo of that earlier shame in Jim’s mind.

He draws back, brushing a hand across Jim’s cheek, kissing him one more time for the briefest of moments before rolling onto his side beside Jim.

“Why did you stop? Did I do something wrong? Is it—”

“No Jim,” Spock says, lifting Jim’s hand and placing his own over it, palm to palm.

Jim goes very still, and he looks down at their joined hands, his eyes widening slightly.

“Vulcan hands are sacred, right?” Jim asks quietly and Spock gives a slow nod, and for a second Jim's eyes flash with a joy Spock can feel through their joined hands.

A moment later however Jim sits up and turns away, pulling his hand out of Spock’s and balling his fists in his lap, his jaw tensing and untensing.

 _Repetitive motions_ , Spock notes, and sits up too.

And sure enough 32.3 seconds later Jim says “Spock, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“I am listening,” Spock says, trying to meet Jim’s gaze while Jim tries to avoid his.

After an additional 8.6 seconds, Jim begins speaking. “I have a criminal record,” he says all in one breath, and then continues before Spock can respond. “I sat trial when I was 11 for grand theft auto and three counts of destruction of property when I drove my dad's Corvette off a cliff. I was—well I was a total shit so I just played a recording of _Bohemian Rhapsody_ as my defense—” Here Jim pauses, catching the expression of shock that had flitted across Spock’s features, and uncharacteristically, misreads it.

“Yeah, I know. It was a bad joke. I knew it was stupid, but at the time I didn’t care. And it turns out the judge didn’t think it was funny either because that’s how I wound up on Tarsus. I was tried as a minor so the sentence was commuted and I was given a choice between 21 months in juvie or 11 months of community service on Tarsus IV. I would have done anything to get out of Iowa, so I went with the community service, and well, you know how that turned out,” Jim finishes, grimacing.

“Jim, why did you drive a car off of a cliff?” Spock asks when he is given a chance.

“Why don’t you chalk it up to the arrogance of youth?” Jim quips, lying back on the bed with a thump.

“That is not funny,” Spock responds, “You could have died. In fact I am amazed that you did not.”

Jim sighs, a long, tired exhale.

“I jumped out at the last moment,” he says, the expression on his face unreadable as he stares up at the ceiling. “I was just really, really angry. It was my dad’s car and Frank—that was my mom’s boyfriend at the time—who was a _chingada_ piece of shit, was going to sell it, and I’d had it with how he—” he pauses tightening his lips. “So I just snapped and drove it into a limestone quarry.”

Spock feels his own heart ache at hearing this as Jim continues.

“You’ve actually seen my step-dad before,” he says, pushing himself up on his elbows and tapping the side of his head. “He’s the white guy who sometimes has the bird face,” Jim finishes matter-of-factly while Spock feels a stab of horror at the memory of feeling the bird faced man standing on his chest and being unable to move as his eyes were pecked out.

After he has processed this information, Spock asks the question regarding the logical gap that has been nettling him ever since Jim mentioned his sentence on Tarsus.

“Jim, if you were sentenced to community service on Tarsus IV, why was your mother there with you?”

As soon as the words have left his mouth he regrets them, and he watches as the blood drains from Jim’s face.

“I always forget how smart you are,” Jim says in a hollowed-out voice. “I didn’t expect you to put it together so fast. She—she came there because of _me_. She was off-planet when I was sentenced and I think she felt guilty or something because she came as soon as her assignment ended to find me. That was five months into my sentence and two months before the crops started going bad...” Jim trails off into silence. “I’ve talked to my therapist about it a lot and I _know_ it was her choice to come and that it wasn’t my f—fault,” Jim continues, his voice breaking on the word fault.

Spock reaches out to touch him but Jim flinches away.

“No, I’m okay, I’m really okay. You said Vulcan hands are sacred so there’s no need—” Jim grimaces. “Here, I don’t understand why you want to talk about this sad shit right now. I said you could fuck me so why do you always have to take the moral high ground?”

And at last—with a rapidity that is usual for him in matters of academics but almost unprecedented in social situations—Spock understands.

Spock gently pushes Jim’s shoulders so he’s lying on the bed again, and this time when he reaches for his hand, Jim doesn’t pull away, looking at Spock with expectant eyes.

Jim’s hand secure, Spock meets Jim's eyes deliberately. 

“It is _your_ hands that are sacred Jim.”

At this, Jim’s brow furrows and his mouth parts in confusion but Spock continues. “So is your mouth,” he says, lightly tracing Jim’s confused frown with two fingers of his other hand, “And your eyes,” he goes on, gently brushing Jim’s eyelids, which close under his touch. “And your mind,” he finishes, caressing Jim’s temple with his finger.

With each touch he sends Jim an image of what he means: _Jim’s hands supporting his head as he floats on the water, touching his elbow, a conduit for grace; Jim blessing him, laughing into his shoulder, telling him that he loves him; Jim’s beautiful eyes flashing with a thousand different emotions but which have always told the truth; Jim’s mind, quick and curious and infinitely surprising_.

 _Jim, the universe was created for you, dust and ashes that you are—and if you alone had been created to marvel at its wonder, it would have been enough_ he communicates silently, holding Jim’s gaze.

“Every part of you is sacred to me," he continues out loud. "And when we consummate our relationship physically you will know this, and you will not need me to tell you with my words.”

Once he has spoken, he watches as a flush crawls up Jim’s neck and eventually covers his whole face, which he shields with his hands, and then, when this is not enough, rolls onto his stomach and buries his face in a pillow from whence he mumbles something unintelligible.

“What did you say?” Spock asks.

“I asked,” Jim says, turning his face out of the pillow just enough so that his words become distinguishable, “how you can say embarrassing bullshit like that with a straight face, _Huevón_.”

Spock trails a finger down the line of Jim’s spine and says “As I have told you many times before, Vulcans do not lie.”

***

In general they don’t have much time for kissing though. With Jim’s graduation date coming fast to a close, Jim spends most of his time in the library and Spock is stuck with all the extra hours he had scheduled for himself.

This, combined with the fact that Spock’s campus apartment is easily visible to students and faculty alike, (making it non-ideal) and Jim’s is usually occupied by anywhere between two and ten other people, mean they have as little privacy as they do spare time.

Spock, while he regrets his own foolish scheduling decisions does not mind waiting to continue their explorations.

The _Enterprise_ is scheduled to leave Earth on another year-and-a-half long voyage at the end of July, and if, as it is likely—thanks to his steady good grades (despite several scraped by diplomacy passes) and the commendation he received for original thinking awarded by a jury of test administrators, not to mention his long standing friendship with Captain Pike—Jim is given a lieutenants posting aboard the Enterprise, they will have time then.

And if he is perfectly candid with himself, he actually prefers it this way. Both he and Jim had (in very different ways) distorted understandings of sex and so Spock is grateful that they are being forced to proceed slowly through the minefield of their separate, traumatic histories.

So after several weeks of barely seeing one another—Spock in his dark labs and Jim in the library drinking so much coffee that he begins complaining of a caffeine addiction—Jim finishes his final tests and turns in his last papers in the second week of May. The week after he graduates with the rest of his class, grinning like a madman when it’s his turn to walk across the stage.

Amanda is there, which Jim was quietly grateful for, as his grandmother was too fragile to attempt the journey.

Jim had gone down to visit her the day after graduation, alone as Spock was still caught up in reading the many, many pages of lab reports he had yet to grade.

Indeed Spock is still working by the Friday after finals (“You did it to yourself _Huevón_ ,” Jim says unsympathetically even as he sneaks Spock sandwiches and horchata), which is the day on which ship and ground assignments are scheduled to be distributed.

Jim is pacing back and forth on the quad in front of the canteen—long having given up trying to pretend he isn’t nervous.

At 1342 hours Jim’s PADD gives the chirp indicating he has received an official Starfleet message.

From his position, at a table nearby Spock can hear Jim muttering something about how if he gets sent to Delta Vega for the time he helped Engineer Scott beam ‘a _pinche beagle’_ he’s going to extract revenge by—

“YES! _¡Orale Huevón!_ We’re going to space!” Jim yells triumphantly, his face dazzling in its happiness. So much so that Spock has to remember that they are in a public setting and that kissing him in full view of the entire campus would be unwise.

“Man it’s a good thing I’m not white,” Jim reflects thoughtfully a moment later. “Otherwise the yellow shirt they’re going to stick me in would totally wash even someone as handsome as _me_ out.”

***

At last even Spock finishes his proverbial mountains of paperwork and all that is left to do is file their relationship status with Starfleet and discuss it with Captain Pike who will be heading their upcoming assignment on the _Enterprise_.

Spock, although he is aware that Jim will not be in his chain of command and that there will be no official breach of protocol, harbors some misgivings about informing the captain.

Several weeks before, Jim had finally gotten around to informing McCoy, who had taken the news as could probably have been predicted—that is to say in an extremely voluble and impolite fashion.

Indeed Spock had been privileged to experience McCoy’s opinion first-hand when the Doctor had come (uninvited) to Spock’s apartment and had proceeded to lecture him on everything from the use of protection (Spock had experienced a strange buzzing in his ears during that part) to the importance of communication (“By god, I couldn’t think of a worse couple of people than you two when it comes to emotional vulnerability—not if you gave me a million years,”) to the consequences should Spock hurt Jim in any way (“You _don’t_ want to find out what a licensed doctor with a fully functioning medbay like the one on the _Enterprise_ could get away with—and don’t you forget that I’ll be your attending physician!) and had ended by growing sentimental (“I’m really happy for you though, I was starting to worry that Jim was the sort of person who couldn’t fall in love. I’m just glad that’s not true, even if it has to be _you_ Spock.”).

Considering this (somewhat traumatic) experience, Spock could hardly be expected to look forward to informing another person—and in this case a superior officer who could make his career much more difficult should he disapprove—about his relationship with the person he had been initially requested to supervise.

This last circumstance did in fact give Spock pause.

He had originally been Jim’s caretaker during a time when Jim had been extremely vulnerable in every sense of the word and it was hard not to see how others—or even Jim himself—might view their relationship as inappropriate.

Spock, growing worried, had eventually asked Jim if he had not been perhaps unduly influenced by the imbalance of power created by their 3.21 year age difference and Spock’s position as a quasi-caretaker in their relationships beginnings.

Jim had just raised his eyebrows.

“Are you asking me if I want to call you ‘daddy?’” he’d said, going back to his PADD. “The answer’s no by the way.”

Spock had stood his ground, suppressing his vasodilation response.

“What?” Jim had said after a moment, looking up. “Do you _want_ me to call you ‘daddy?’”

Although his face had burned, Spock was by now well acquainted with Jim’s habits of flippancy and misdirection when asked serious questions, and had ignored this response and pressed him further.

“No, okay?” Jim had said, beginning to look annoyed. “Do you really think I wouldn’t be aware of something that huge?”

Spock had given him a look and Jim had scowled.

“That’s completely different,” Jim had said defensively, but, perhaps seeing that Spock was not willing to let him avoid this issue had at last relented.

“Look, I know how it looks but it’s not like that. I met you almost four years after Tarsus. Yeah, when we met I was shit out of luck but that doesn’t change the four years I’d spent living with _mis_ _abuelos_ and going to therapy and learning how to be a person again.

“And I know not having had a father-figure means I’m predisposed to—latch onto authority figures or whatever but that’s not what this is. If you don’t trust me you can snoop around inside my head and check, but you should know that I’m _one hundred percent certain_ that what I feel for you isn’t misplaced daddy issues or whatever. You're forgetting that I lived with Pike that summer more than I did with you, so I know what _that_ feels like and this is completely different," Jim said, grimacing. "Before I realized I actually _into_ you, I _always_ thought of you as a friend and not a babysitter or whatever.”

In the end this conversation had been helpful both in clearing away Spock’s doubts and in preparing for their joint and separate discussions with Captain Pike, who had asked them both the same question Spock had.

While Pike had been professional, it was plain even to Spock, that his worry for Jim (who had after all been his former ward) would not be assuaged without as much honesty as Spock (who had been oddly gratified by Pike’s worry) could give.

Eventually though, as Spock kept speaking, Pike had relaxed and when he was done Pike had grinned at him and said “Well, I can honestly say that I didn’t see this coming, but I’m happy for you.”

Spock had nodded and Pike had looked at him earnestly and said again “You do understand that right Spock? I had to ask those questions and I’m glad I did because I can tell you know what you’re doing. You have my blessing for what it’s worth.”

Spock, who absolutely did not know what he was doing had nodded sagely and thanked Pike for his concern.

And, with Pike’s blessing, he and Jim had—at long last—been able to make use of the privacy of Spock’s apartment without worrying about what people would say.

After that conversation, barely do they get inside his door when Jim pushes Spock into the bedroom saying “Alright Spock, put your boots by the bed ‘cause it’s cold in here and we’re not leaving this room till someone needs medical help or some _chingada_ asshole tries to break down the door.”

Really the process is much more complicated than that because Spock needs to unfurl his bedrolls and go through the somewhat painstaking, but necessary process of fastening them together by a series of small ties along their sides.

All the while Jim looks on impatiently and Spock is not quite finished when Jim is pushes him to the floor and kisses him until he is dizzy with their combine sensations, their small breathless noises filling the room.

Kissing Jim after so long apart feels like giving into the tide after resisting its pull for too long—for weeks and months and maybe years until you had to give in, exhausted, to what had always been inevitable.

Jim yanks off his own shirt and eventually gets Spock out of his own, but when he reaches for the fastening of Spock’s pants, Spock stops him.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/47924754856/in/dateposted-public/)

“Not tonight,” Spock breathes through a head swimming with endorphins.

Jim grumbles until Spock makes his thoughts blur into a haze by kissing his collar bone.  

Later though, (the following morning) Jim had proclaimed “I can’t believe you have this fantastic ass at your disposal,” gesturing at his own posterior, “and you’re letting it go to waste. I don’t understand why you don’t just fuck me and get it over with. I know you want to, I felt how hard—”

“Why do you assume,” Spock had begun, determined to cut Jim off but not quite knowing what he was going to say and uncharacteristically blurting the first thing that comes into his head. “Why do you assume that I do not wish for the reverse arrangement?” he finished, blushing sorrel-green.

His words, however embarrassing, at least had the desired effect of shutting Jim up while Spock finished his breakfast.

Jim’s desire to have intercourse as soon as possible—as Spock had begun to suspect during the first week of their new relationship—resulted from an insecurity (that Spock does not understand) about why Spock would want to be with him without some form of sexual recompense.

This sense, paradoxically makes Spock all the more determined to wait longer than even he wants to before they consummate their relationship in order to assure Jim—who does not have even accidental access to his thoughts—of his commitment.

***

On many nights, Spock lies awake long after Jim has fallen asleep, thinking about the rules that he had observed all his life (rules which he had always thought were Vulcan, but which he now sees he had created himself and imposed more strictly than anyone else could have) and how they had somehow lead him to Jim, only to all be undone, defeated, disproven and made useless in a single staggering moment in the brief second he had seen himself through Jim's eyes—reminding him of the first time he had studied the beginning of the universe and learned that it was beyond his comprehension and that of science—a moment that reframed his whole reality.

And of the many moments over time when this had happened without him realizing it, again and again, quickly and slowly, too late and too soon until he had realized that, _Tel-alep_ like, all his knowledge had never helped him see the truth.

Illogically, these thoughts remind him of a song he had once heard Jim singing under his breath that went something like ‘ _I once was blind, but now I see._ ’

***

It is in the period of several, long enjoyable weeks before the _Enterprise’s_ departure on the 25th of July that Spock hatches a daring plan.

One evening in early July, Jim gets home to Spock’s apartment (where he has mostly been residing for the past month and a half) after a day spent in last-minute training for life aboard a starship.

Spock glances out the window as Jim takes off his overshirt and shoes. The sky outside is a deep pink, not quite red enough to be _vai sbah_ , the holy red of Vulcan’s daytime sky.

When Jim has completed the removal of his shoes, Spock moves forward, holding up a long red cloth ribbon meant to be used in Vulcan ceremonial combat where the goal was not to wound the opponent, but to prevent all harm in honor of _Kir-Alep_ , the god of peace to whom the _Suus Mahna_ is dedicated.

Jim sees it and looks at him confusedly. “What—?” he begins but then stops as Spock lays the ribbon on the ground in front of him.

“As I cannot dance, I do not think it will be possible to do this to music,” Spock begins, having spent many hours researching the [Bamba wedding dance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIo2hVUjafI). “However—”

But Jim cuts him off saying in a strangled voice “Spock, are you—do you know what—are you asking me to _marry_ you?”

“Yes Jim,” Spock says simply, raising an eyebrow. “I would have thought that was obvious. Now, if you would assist me. I cannot do this alone,” Spock finishes calmly and begins to move one end of the ribbon forward with his foot.

Mutely, Jim moves the other end with his own foot until it takes the shape of a rough circle. Then Spock pushes in the middle, in what he knows from his research is the reason for this knot’s being called the “ _corazon_.”

Together, they each push one side of the heart, closing the gaps.

“I don’t know what comes next,” Jim says and Spock gives him a small smile.

“I do,” he says, and shows Jim how to cross one side over the other, once, twice. Then he loops his foot through the opening they have created and pulls one of the sides through as Jim holds the ribbon steady with one of his own feet.

“ _Para bailar la bamba se necesita_ ,” Jim murmurs softly as they both step on one of the loops of ribbon they have formed. _“Una poca de gracia.”_

“ _Por ti seré_ ,” Spock answers as they both begin to pull the knot closed.

Jim meets his gaze, his expression one of shock and awe.

 _“Por ti seré,”_ he returns as the knot pulls closed.

The sky outside deepens into a Vulcan red as Jim and Spock pick up the newly formed bow.

Suddenly Jim yanks his side and Spock is jerked toward him, and they are standing chest to chest.

“That was really romantic,” Jim whispers in his ear, moving one hand to the spot he knows Spock likes, just behind his ear and under his jaw and the other holding Spock's hip.

Spock shivers, and Jim grins into his neck before continuing. “I didn’t know you had it in you _Huevón_. This is me saying yes by the way,” he says, kissing Spock in the spot just under his jaw.

“This means we can have sex right?” Jim asks a moment later, and Spock, who feels no trace of shame flowing through Jim’s hand on his face pushes him wordlessly towards the bedroom.

***

“I… I want…. I want…” Jim gasps as they move together, his eyes dark with lust and his breathing shuddering through both of them, the crucifix which he never takes off still around his neck.

Spock closes his mouth with a kiss. “Jim, I know exactly what you want,” he tells him.

Spock feels like he’s becoming ocean waves as the tide comes in, each pull stronger than the last.

When he at last presses his face into Jim’s neck, his breath stuttering as they continue to move, Jim whispering in Spanish that he beautiful, that he loves him, his breath catches in his throat as the wave finally crests.

***

Afterwards, Jim holds him, stroking his hair until he falls asleep.

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/161542031@N07/40893526103/in/dateposted-public/)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
> estupido=stupid  
> Claro que si=of course  
> Ya sé lo que eso significa=I already know what that means  
> No pintar. Propiedad privada.=Don't paint. Private property.  
> Oralé=here this  
> Por ti seré=I’ll be for you
> 
> Here's [a tiny youtube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJ4nlWOo3dhOVFAMXtU9ipis8_SSaobLo) about Jim and Spock's love in this story. 
> 
> Listen to song [number 9 ("I Just Had Sex")](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQlIhraqL7o&list=PLJ4nlWOo3dhOVFAMXtU9ipis8_SSaobLo&index=10&t=0s) if you want to know how Spock felt after that last scene. (nsfw).
> 
> final drawing inspired by ["Neetols"](https://neetols.tumblr.com)


	14. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to [summerofspock](https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerofspock/pseuds/summerofspock) who did a fantastico job beta'ing this chapter.

_Extra scene:_

“You have no idea how much it used to suck,” Jim mumbles into his chest on the warm night before they are set to depart on the Enterprise when they are sleeping on Spock’s floor.

“Please clarify,” Spock responds, unsure of what Jim is referring to.

“This,” Jim says, lifting his hand from where it rests on Spock’s side so that he can make a twirling gesture with his finger.

“Sleeping in the same room as you and—well let’s just say nightmares weren’t the only kind of dream I was afraid of having.”

“I am still uncertain of your meaning. To what other kind of dream are you referring?”

Jim groans. “I’m probably going to spend my whole life explaining things to you aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Spock says and waits patiently for Jim to explain it to him.

Jim groans again. “Sex dreams Spock,” he says in a resigned tone.

“What are sex dreams?”

“Oh for—shit, you really don’t know?”

“I do not.”

“Alright, alright,” Jim sighs. “Remember when you explained mind melds to me? Sex dreams are also exactly what they sound like.”

“I see.”

“No you don’t—the point is it sucked to sleep in the same room as you and not be able to do anything about it. And I was stuck that way for who knows how long since I’ve had a crush on you since—”

“Since?” Spock asks curiously.

“No,” Jim says with finality. “Nope. I’m not going to say. It’s too embarrassing.”

As per the scientific journal article he had recently read entitled _“What Makes Love Last?”_ Spock decides do what Gottman and DeClaire had recommended and make an intimacy bid—which they had described as one of the key factors in predicting a couples’ long-term ability to maintain an intimate relationship.

“I do not know precisely when I first came to be romantically inclined towards you—” here Jim makes a noise of disgust at his phrasing, but Spock soldiers on, “—but I first became aware of my feelings on the 6th of January, Stardate 2253.6, at 1832 hours and 34 seconds.”

Jim snorts. “I don’t know whether to think the fact that you know the exact time is cute or completely weird.”

“It was while we were walking back from Professor Abassi’s presentation of newly catalogued microorganisms discovered on the planet Githgftha VII. If you recall, there was a particular organism that was fas—”

“Wow, you’re really not helping your case with that one _Huevo_ ,” Jim remarks.

Focusing once again on his purpose Spock continues. “At 1832 hours and 28.2 seconds you began laughing and 2.3 seconds later you closed your eyes for a full 6.0 seconds. I noticed this because you hardly ever close your eyes for such long periods when you are in public as you prefer to survey your surroundings at all times. Many of your emotions are beautiful to me Jim, but your trust is… especially precious to me,” Spock finishes, feeling suddenly exposed.

He feels Jim lean in and then he is being kissed on the mouth.

When he pulls back Jim says quietly “There wasn’t one moment when I realized I was in love with you. It happened slowly, and then by the time I finally realized what was going on it somehow seemed like I’d always felt that way—even though I knew that couldn’t be true because I totally thought you were either a recluse or a serial killer on that first day when Pike dropped me off at your apartment, _Dios_ I’ll never forget that refrigerator—but somehow it felt like I’d _always_ been in love with you. Since before we even met, which I _know_ is crazy _vato_ , but it’s the truth.”

Spock considers this. “My mother—"

“I really like her,” Jim interrupts and Spock clears his throat.

“Sorry,” Jim says, not sounding sorry.

“My mother once observed to me that human emotions work backwards,” Spock says, growing thoughtful. “I believe what she meant was that what one feels in the present moment affects one’s memories of the past. This is of course, true on a chemical level. For example the emotion of happiness in humans is usually accompanied by the release of dopamine or serotonin. If a human attempts to recall a past event while the brain is in such a chemical environment, it is possible and often involuntary that the mind will re-encode that memory in the pre-frontal cortex and cerebellum, quite literally infusing it with a different emotional character. In this sense what you are saying is true, if only in a subjective sense,” Spock says, thinking of all the pain he had gone through and knowing that—despite regretting their misunderstanding—he had done the right thing by not giving into his own or Jim’s whims and protecting the sanctity of the relationship they now had, for now his own emotions had worked backwards, making even past pain a present joy.

“…That’s great Spock,” Jim answers.

***

_**Epilogue:** _

_7 years later_

“I mean seriously, did they pick this shade of yellow to discourage white dudes from trying to become captain?” Jim asks as he fixes his own captain’s uniform in the mirror and inspects his hair for any signs of drooping.

It’s something he has to do every morning to make sure the heat of their quarters (which Jim pretends to mind but doesn’t) hasn’t subdued it into limpness—because if that ever _did_ happened then they really _would_ have a problem.

“I mean just think for a second about how bad this shirt would look on anyone not blessed with melanin—you for example,” Jim continues as Spock watches him from their bed in a way that he probably thinks is subtle but isn't.

Green and mussed from sleep and the activities of the night before is one of Jim’s favorite, secret views of Spock, so he watches right back in the mirror as Spock kicks the covers off with what Jim has privately thought of as his sexy, dark-haired legs since the first time he saw them that day at the beach.

“Like imagine you had to pick between who you’d rather look at in this shirt all day on the bridge—me, or Bones say,” he continues, tucking the crucifix his mother had given him into his shirt, and watching as Spock stretches and attempts to straighten his hair which causes it to become more disheveled than ever.

“Jim, the premise of your question is flawed as there is almost no circumstance under which I would rather look at Doctor McCoy than at you,” Spock informs him, his voice slightly slurred with sleep.

Jim keeps watching as Spock gets out of bed, wearing only the underwear he’d pulled on sometime after Jim had gotten to listen to that beloved half-choked gasp and see the beauty of pleasure fill Spock’s eyes.

“Are you saying you're emotionally compromised in my favor?” Jim asks archly, turning to look at his husband with a grin and cocking his hip in a pose that he knows Spock finds distracting.

“You forget the possibility that I am simply compromised _against_ the doctor,” Spock says, raising a sardonic eyebrow even as he steps toward Jim, the words _“You are well aware that I am,”_ clearly expressed in his dark, human eyes which have always revealed too much.

“For instance, I would not do this to your friend the doctor,” Spock says kissing Jim on the mouth and moving his fingers to slide against Jim’s.

So close like this Spock smells like the desert—like warm earth and a subtle herbal note that is _almost_ like creosote, but isn’t.

Jim pulls back, laughing. “Ugh, save that till after you’ve brushed your teeth _Huevón_ ,” he says, but then kisses Spock again anyway, running two fingers across the back of his hand and nuzzling his neck.

Spock pulls him closer, murmuring something into his hair in the Spanish accent Jim will never tell him is dreadful because it means too much that Spock learned Jim's first language and hearing it, he feels his heart squeeze in his chest.

 _“Te amo_ ,” Jim says softly after a moment, still feeling slightly giddy saying it, even after so much time together—even after they had stood, hand in hand on the red sands of Vulcan that smell like Spock in an ancient ceremony that joined their minds in a permanent bond.

This giddiness he feels when saying ‘I love you,’ to Spock is not the only thing that hasn’t changed.

After all these years Jim still has nightmares of Tarsus. 

Even at 28, they still make him feel like a scared child, totally alone and different from everyone around him. He still doesn’t remember what had happened to him or his mother, but what has come back is all as bleak and terrifying as he’d expected it would be.

At night his dreams (and sometimes Spock's) are still haunted by the strange blue-eyed version of himself and the monsters he's long since grown used to.

He still mourns the death of his _abuelos_ , his mother, and the father he never got to meet, all losses Spock will never fully understand despite sharing part of his mind.

He still has scars he can’t explain and he still sometimes flinches away without knowing why when Spock tries to touch him, and he sometimes betrays Spock by trying to use the sex they have just to get out of his own head and feel like he can disappear.

And sometimes he still feels as though he’s not good enough for Spock, has trapped him in a relationship he’ll never admit to regretting and gets angry and explodes or retreats to a place where no one, not even Spock can reach him.

And likewise he has to watch whenever Spock closes himself off, retreats into the memories of pain and loneliness he had experienced for so many years on Vulcan and Earth.

He knows Spock is still estranged from Sarek, their communications having barely warmed to an acknowledgement in the last years just as he knows he'll never fully understand why.

He also knows Spock sometimes still feels ashamed of enjoying sex, unconsciously touching the scar on his abdomen (now more faded than ever) whenever he feels guilty or like he doesn't belong.

But they have been granted a measure of necessary grace in their time together.

Whether it is the divine grace that Jim had found himself believing in, loved and safe in his _abuela_ ’s house in Santa Maria after the nightmare of Tarsus IV, or the less religious, but equally faith-based grace that Spock has come to have in the universe, in himself and others and in Jim.

He thinks of this as he looks into Spock’s eyes, which had been so sad when they first met, but are now filled with warmth and obvious love.

“As I love you, _T’hy’la,_ ” Spock returns, smiling at him quietly, and Jim gets a glimpse of the wonder behind all things as the joy they are both feeling fills his heart like a living thing, its presence itself a small miracle of grace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follow me at [@wingittofreedom](https://wingittofreedom.tumblr.com) and reblog [this post](https://wingittofreedom.tumblr.com/post/187831995394/sciencebluefeelings-i-had-so-much-fun-reading) or [this one](https://wingittofreedom.tumblr.com/post/185580059999/a-little-bit-of-grace-for-me-and-for-you) if you'd like others to find this!
> 
> Thank you ALL so much for your support. Whatever grace is to be found within this story, it would have been impossible without you. And a very special thanks to PrarieDawn, blueroses96, Finnegancat, NeirSprite, and madeofmydreams—responding to your comments made it all worth it!, to NeirSprite for your thoughtful, amazing help, to madeofmydreams, for gracing each and every chapter with lovely words, to summerofspock for their constant support, and to zhedang for the encouragement that propelled me to the end.
> 
> Reminder: (dust and ashes as you are) the universe was created for you, and if only you had been created to marvel at its beauty, your wonder would have been enough to justify the whole chingada thing.
> 
> At the very least you maybe learned some bacán Spanish curse words.


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